


The Thrown Pebble

by MissjuliaMiriam



Series: Ut Malis Melior [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Boy-Who-Lived Neville Longbottom, Bullying, Christmas, Diagon Alley, Epistolary, Flying Lessons, Gen, Harry Potter's Sass, Hogwarts Express, Hospitalization, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It's All Downhill From Here Kids, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mirror of Erised, Norbert the Dragon (Harry Potter), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Potions Class (dun dun DUNNNNN), Presents!, Slytherin Harry Potter, The Forbidden Forest (Harry Potter), The Power of Friendship I Guess, The Sorting Hat, Worldbuilding, social politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-07-16 09:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 68,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16083065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissjuliaMiriam/pseuds/MissjuliaMiriam
Summary: Harry Potter grew up at Number Four Privet Drive. Harry Potter has never known his parents. Harry Potter is a wizard.Harry Potter isnotthe Boy Who Lived.--The Thrown Pebble is Book One of a whole-canon reimagining wherein Neville Longbottom, not Harry Potter, was the one targeted by Voldemort. This changes many things, and other things not at all.(TTP is complete; the series is a WIP. Tags will be updated as chapters are posted. See series notes for more details.)





	1. The Magical World

**Author's Note:**

> **The first author's note is stupidly long, but please at least skim it, there's some relevant info in here! Thank you!**
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> First of all, thank yous! This series has been an absolute labour of love over the course of... probably five years, from its first conception. This series is in significant part also the fault of murmuredlullabye, whom I love and also hate. They have been my partner in crime in brainstorming this monstrosity since day one (might've been their idea originally, in fact) and did a little bit of writing in early days before I stole the project and ran. Love you, ML <3\. I'd also like to give massive props to gabsc, who volunteered to beta Book One, having been told precisely nothing about the project. Thank you so much!
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> Ut Malis Melior is... a massive project. Book One: The Thrown Pebble is complete at approx. 68,000 words (11 chapters), and Book Two is well underway. I'll be updating every two weeks, possibly with a break in posting here and there when shit happens IRL (hopefully with warning), and I'll... try to keep to Sundays.
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> I've also got some story/text notes. First of all, the tags are obviously incomplete. I **will** be updating the tags as I go along, but there are a few things that I don't want to spoiler for those who have the pleasure of reading from day one ;). (I've preempted a few things for the sake of this first chapter, obviously.) There are also a number of quotes, paraphrases, and close-to-canon of scenes from _Philosopher's Stone_ , which I haven't bothered to mark out in any way because I personally find that extremely obtrusive, so if you think you recognize a quote, it's very possible that you do in fact recognize it and that's why. It's a fairly small overall percentage, but, y'know, disclaimers and shit. Now you know.
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> Finally, universe stuff. I've made some changes to the magical world that take this further from canon, most of which aren't strictly related to the AU plot elements - mostly just things that make me happy. The two most obvious one is that I'm using "wixen/wix" as a gender neutral term for "magical person". The latter I borrowed from another HP author here on AO3, darkseraphina, because I thought it was fucking cool and I like it. So, uh, yeah. That's about it? In terms of things that I think I should explain explicitly, at least - I did a lot of worldbuilding for this fic and its sequels, and if you ever want to talk to me about it, please, please do. 
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> I THINK I'M DONE TALKING NOW. READ THE FIC. ENJOY IT. SUBSCRIBE OR WHATEVER. IF YOU READ THIS FIC AND GO "GOD I WISH SHE'D GIVEN A MEMO ABOUT X THING" JUST LET ME KNOW AND I'LL ADD IT. THANKS LOVE YOU ALL BYE.

Pomona’s heeled boots click on the pavement as she makes her way along Privet Drive, counting the house numbers that she passes. Number 10, Number 8, Number 6 — only the numbers themselves serve to differentiate the houses meaningfully. They’re nigh identical, and the mundane conformity of it makes her shake her head. Though muggleborn herself and not unfamiliar with such suburbs, Pomona’s family was never the sort of cling to the ordinary, the boring. She hopes that the family that dwells within Number 4 disproves her expectations, or at least can benefit from the shake up that always comes from an introduction to the magical world.

And there it is: Number 4 Privet Drive. The front garden is immaculate, which she observes with a pleased expression for a moment before she steps onto the walk up to the door.

“Uh, excuse me? Ma’am?” says a voice from out of a bush at the side of the garden.

Pomona pauses and looks over. Crouched near the glorious roses lining the driveway is a scrawny little boy, practically drowning in his overlarge, dirt-smeared clothing. There is mud on his hands and he’s holding a trowel as if he knows what to do with it, which makes her smile. He looks well-equipped for weeding. “Good afternoon,” Pomona says. “And who might you be?”

The boy’s eyes, visibly green even through thick, smudged glasses, blink at her. “Harry Potter,” he says. “Who’s asking?”

“Oh, wonderful! I am Pomona Sprout, professor of Herbology and Head of Hufflepuff house at Hogwarts,” she says promptly, and offers her hand for him to shake. “Looking for you, in fact. It’s a pleasure, Mr. Potter. Are your guardians about?”

That gets his attention, and his eyes narrow. Something in his expression sharpens until Pomona feels pinned by it.

“They’re not much for uninvited guests,” he says. “But if you’d like to leave a message I’ll let them know you stopped by.”

Pomona hesitates. It’s certainly not unheard of for a child to pass a Hogwarts letter on to their parents without the professor speaking to them themself, and it’s even common in cases involving exceptional accidental magic. No fooling yourself about magic being real when you’ve seen your child levitate the family pet with your own eyes. And Pomona remembers Harry’s parents; she wouldn’t be surprised if he was one of those cases, given how powerful the both of them were. Their temperaments, too, were of the sort that tend toward accidental magic: bold, stubborn, and quite fiery. If Harry has inherited any of that, he’s certain to have had his fair share of outbursts. Adding to that, of course, is the fact that Petunia Dursley already knows of the magical world; she grew up with Lily, after all. But that doesn’t mean she’s told anything to the young Mr. Potter, and Harry’s knowledge is necessary for her duty to be discharged. So.

“Well, I suppose you could speak to your guardians,” she says, “but you’ll need to know what you’re talking about first. So, let us see, Mr. Potter: have you ever seen something happen that you couldn’t quite explain? Something you badly wanted, perhaps when you were scared or angry?”

Harry’s eyes widen again, his expression returning to that of a child, no longer hard and shrewd as it had been for that nerve-wracking moment. He thinks hard about it, and then says, “I... turned my teacher’s hair blue, once. I think.”

Pomona smiles encouragingly. “And I’ll bet that’s not the only time something odd has happened, hm?”

“I - I suppose not,” he mumbles.

“Well, congratulations, Mr. Potter: you’re a wizard!”

“I’m a what?”

So Harry has been told nothing about their world. A shame, truly, but Pomona supposes it can’t be helped, what with being raised by muggles — sister of a witch or no, perhaps Mrs. Dursley simply didn’t feel equipped to discuss the magical world with her ward. “A wizard,” she repeats, chuckling. “There’s a whole separate magical world out there, Mr. Potter, and Hogwarts can be your bridge to it, if you wish.”

“Hogwarts?”

Pomona pats her pockets for a moment, then produces a sealed envelope addressed to Harry in emerald ink and a copy of the pamphlet they handed out to all their muggleborn students. She offers both to Harry. “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is the very finest school for magical education in all of Europe. That envelope there has your acceptance letter and a list of supplies you’ll need for your first year.”

Harry brushes as much dirt off his hands as possible, then slowly reaches out to take the letter and the pamphlet from her. He tears the envelope open neatly and scans its contents. After a moment, he peers up at her over the edge of the sheets of parchment. “This isn’t some kind of joke, is it?” he asks. “I mean — there’s no way there’s a mistake?”

“Certainly not,” Pomona says cheerfully. “You said it yourself: you’ve done magic. And the Registration Book never makes mistakes!”

Harry looks back down at the letter, then sighs and says, “You’d better come in then. They’re not going to believe it if _I_ tell them.”

Pomona blinks at him for a moment, then follows the boy to the door and inside. He takes his shoes off in the entryway, so she emulates him, and then from the den a male voice hollers, “If you’re coming in, those gardens had best be weeded to perfection, boy!”

“We have a guest, Uncle Vernon,” Harry calls back, and a moment later Pomona hears heavy footsteps as someone climbs out of a chair and comes to the doorway of the den.

The man who appears looks not unlike a tomato: round and red-faced. He has a bushy moustache with a deep scowl beneath it, and when his small, dark eyes fix on her Pomona finds herself thinking that she has never seen a less pleasant-looking person. Then she brushes off the uncharitable thought and steps forward, holding out a hand. “Mr. Vernon Dursley, I presume! A pleasure.”

He looks suspiciously at her, but reaches out to shake her hand. “Certainly. And who are you?”

“My name is Pomona Sprout,” she says. “I am a professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and—”

Before she can explain that she is there to speak with him about his nephew, he withdraws his hand sharply from hers, his face going even further red, closer to pomegranate colour. “There’ll be none of that in this house!” he shouts. “Magic is not real! The boy’s a liar, and he’ll certainly not be going off to any _school_.” As he speaks, he makes a grab for Harry, and the boy skitters back to Pomona’s side just in time to avoid having his arm snatched quite harshly.

“Well!” Pomona says, surprised. “Mr. Dursley, I can assure you that magic is _quite_ real, and Harry here will be in need of a good education.” To demonstrate, she draws her wand, and with a flick turns his shirt from the light blue it was before to a red that matches his face. Beside her, Harry giggles quietly before slapping a hand over his mouth.

“Wh— undo it!” Mr. Dursley shouts. “Petunia!”

From down the hall, a thin woman with sallow cheeks and thin brown hair appears. She has a pinched expression, clearly having heard her husband’s earlier exclamations. “Magic is not welcome in this house,” she says tightly, coming to stand beside Mr. Dursley.

“I never,” Pomona says. “Magic will _have_ to be welcome in this house, as your nephew is certainly magical. As was your sister, Petunia Dursley! I knew her quite well, and her son seems a fine young man; I’m sure I don’t understand what all this fuss is about.”

“He’ll not be going off to some ‘school’ to learn freakish things,” Mr. Dursley insists. “Petunia told me all about the strangeness her sister did when they were children; no surprise she went off to learn about _all that_ and right away got herself sent mad, and that good-for-nothing husband of hers too.”

“Sent mad?” Harry says, from beside Pomona. When she glances down at him, he has that hard look on his face again, this time directed at his uncle. “You told me they died. In a car crash.”

“A car—” Pomona stops herself forcefully and takes a deep breath. “Mr. Potter, your parents put themselves in grave danger to fight a war against a very evil man, and were harmed deeply trying to protect you. They certainly did not die in a car crash.”

“You mean they’re still alive?” Harry whispers.

Pomona nods, and bends down briefly to say to him, in a private tone, “Yes, Harry. I’ll take you to visit them as soon as we can, yes? They’re in a magical hospital.”

Harry nods, and reaches his dirty fingers up under his glasses to wipe away the tears from his eyes. He leaves smudges of earth behind, but he doesn’t cry.

Pomona turns back to the Dursleys, and says to them, “Why on earth you would have told him something like that is far beyond me.”

“We wanted him to be _normal_ ,” Mrs. Dursley says. “No growing up dreaming about magic and flying like my sister did. She always had her head full of dreams, and look what it got her. As good as murdered. And her son left on my doorstep to be a burden on me and my husband, all because of _magic_ , which certainly has nothing to do with me.”

“That’s right,” Mr. Dursley said. “We’ll be having nothing to do with _your kind.”_

Pomona takes a slow, steadying breath. _They are simply ignorant_ , she tells herself. _And in any case, hexing them would certainly be illegal, though I doubt there is a jury that would convict me_. “Your nephew is one of _my kind_ , sir. Thus he must receive an education, and his parents provided for him to be educated _well_. So he shall go to Hogwarts. He has in hand his acceptance letter and his list of required supplies.”

“We’re not paying for any of this!” Mr. Dursley immediately bursts out.

“I did not say you would have to,” Pomona says. “His parents willed him funds to pay for his education. I shall return a week hence to bring him to Diagon Alley to do his shopping. On that day, or some other if we do not have time, I shall also be taking him to visit his parents. It is clear to me that you will insist on doing the bare minimum, so this is what is required of you: you shall ensure he is dressed for a day out when I return. Then you shall deliver him to King’s Cross Station on September the 1st, so that he may take the train to Hogwarts. Other than that, I need you only to keep him fed and give him a place to sleep, as I assume you have been doing. Yes?” When she asks at the end, she looks down at Harry, rather than at the Dursleys. The boy is staring back at her, then shrugs and darts his eyes toward the door of the cupboard under the stairs. Pomona resists the urge to close her eyes for sorrow. This boy’s life, she knows now, has not been what it should have been. But she will do what she can. “If I return in a week,” she says, “to find that he has been poorly treated due to my visit and his future as a wizard, I shall have no choice but to report you to Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, who I am sure will have no trouble sorting you out.”

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley exchange a nervous look, then both nod. “We’ll have him ready,” Mrs. Dursley says. “Now… now leave our home! … Please.”

Pomona pats Harry on the shoulder, and says, “I’ll be back this time next week. Save up your questions for then, and I shall take you to lunch and answer as many as you can think of, hm?”

Harry nods and smiles up at her. His bright, genuine smile is truly beautiful; beneath the smudged glasses and muddy hands is a charming, pretty child who she is sure has a bright future in the magical world. Now she only needs to ensure that he has the chance to access it.

 

* * *

 

As promised, Pomona returns a week later. Petunia Dursley answers the door and shouts for Harry (“Boy!”), then sends them off together without a word of goodbye. This time, at least, Harry comes down the stairs from above, and is dressed in clothing that fits him. At Pomona’s gentle prodding, he admits that this single set of clothes was bought for him solely for this outfit, but they’d given him his cousin Dudley’s second bedroom, and it had some broken toys and things that he could play with, which was better than what he’d had before. Pomona squashes her fury and instead complements the cartoon character on the boy’s shirt, which makes him smile.

For the sake of the experience, Pomona suggests that they take the Knight Bus. Harry’s face goes absolutely white when the purple monstrosity appears out of thin air with a bang, but the ride makes him laugh and cling to the seat, and Pomona places a hand on his back to steady him. When they get off at the Leaky Cauldron, he’s grinning widely up at her.

Pomona greets Tom pleasantly but doesn’t linger in the pub, though Harry is looking around wide-eyed at its patrons. Certainly more varied folk than he’d have met on Privet Drive, Pomona thinks, and cannot wait to see his face when the doorway to the Alley itself opens and reveals Diagon in all its glory. And, indeed, Harry’s expression of sheer wonder does not disappoint. All the hustle and bustle astounds him, the people in their colourful robes, the shouts of children and hooting of owls, the strange smells and occasional pop or bang of spellwork. Smiling, Pomona offers her hand, and Harry takes it unselfconsciously, too busy staring about to worry about looking childish. She guides him cheerily through the crowds until they reach the imposing facade of Gringotts Bank, and then she produces from her pocket a small golden key and leans down to look Harry in the eye.

“This is your key,” she says, handing it to him. “I retrieved it from Dumbledore, who was friends with your parents and has kept it safe for you since they were incapacitated. I believe that the vault it opens is a trust vault; you may ask the goblins when we get inside.”

“Okay,” Harry says and takes the key, holding it firmly in his hands, but with the air of a person who never once has touched something so valuable. He glances toward the doors and the goblin guards who flank them. “Those are goblins? They run the bank?”

“Yes, Harry. They’re strange creatures and don’t always much like wixen—that’s the word for magical humans, like us—but they are very good at managing money and guard what they have been entrusted with fiercely.”

Harry nods solemnly. He doesn’t retake Pomona’s hand when she offers it, instead seeming focussed on holding his key. As they pass through the first set of doors, his attention is caught by the writing on the second, silver set. Pomona watches Harry squint at it, and then says, “Can you read it, Harry?”

He flushes slightly, then pauses to pull his glasses off his nose and attempt to clean them. When he puts them back on, though, he’s still squinting; his eyes seem to track the words, at least, but he’s clearly having difficulty.

“Hm,” says Pomona, as if she were not all over again furious with the Dursleys. “Perhaps we’ll visit an optometrist in the Alley today and see about getting your prescription updated, hm?”

Harry nods, still flushed, and says, “I can read it now, it’s just a bit blurry.”

“Well, blurry’s no good. You’ll need to read the board in classes, after all.”

“Okay,” Harry says. Then they pass through the second set of doors and he’s gaping all over again at the alien faces of the goblins, their harsh voices and imposing desks, higher than his head.

They approach the nearest available teller, who leans over his desk to peer down at Harry through the small glasses set on his nose. “Key?”

Harry offers the key, handing it up to the goblin, who inspects it. After a moment, he gives a satisfied huff and then says, “A withdrawal today, Mr. Potter?”

Harry nods. Only his wide eyes give away how daunted he must be; his expression is remarkably calm. “Yes, sir,” he says. “I mean, Mr… um.”

“I am Griphook,” the goblin says. “I shall take you to your vault.”

“Thank you, Griphook,” says Harry, and he and Pomona follow Griphook along a passageway which leads to the track that will take them down to the vaults. The trip to Harry’s vault is whirlwind as always, and Pomona’s cheeks are flushed and she is laughing along with Harry when they arrive. Even Griphook’s grim expression seems to have softened slightly.

“Vault 687,” Griphook says, and opens the way for Harry.

The door creaks open to reveal a shining pile of gold, and Pomona’s gasp is fortunately disguised by Harry’s. A trust for school, yes, but also a small fortune. As Harry goes inside and began to fill a small pouch that Pomona had given him earlier, she turns and says quietly to Griphook, “Did the Potters have a second vault?”

He nods. “Indeed, Professor. It was sealed due to their… circumstances. The goblins are in possession of its key, to be surrendered to Mr. Potter on his seventeenth birthday.”

Sealed to keep out the Ministry; Pomona knew of such things having happened in the past. She had not been joking with Harry about goblins’ fierce defence of the gold that they protected. “Is there a way for Mr. Potter to get an accounting of its contents, or for him to see his parents’ will?”

Griphook gives her a shrewd look, then nods. “I can retrieve the documents when we return upstairs.”

“Thank you, Master Goblin.”

A moment later, Harry comes back out with a full pouch of coins and says, “I didn’t know how much to take. Are things very expensive?”

“Your school supplies will not be too dear, Mr. Potter,” Pomona says. “But it doesn’t hurt to have some extra money to hand, in case you wish to make additional purchases.”

Harry nods. “Okay.” Then he looks at Griphook and says, “Thanks for opening my vault.”

Griphook raises one eyebrow, then bows his head in acknowledgement before gesturing toward the cart. “We should proceed back upstairs.”

The ride back up is marginally less of a near-death experience, and Pomona touches Harry’s shoulder and leads him back toward Griphook’s desk as Griphook himself vanishes into some back passage. “I asked Griphook to fetch copies of your vault manifests and your parents’ will,” she says. “I thought you might like to see them.”

Harry swallows, but he nods and waits patiently for Griphook to return, which he does promptly, a thick envelope in hand.

“The manifests for vaults 831, 687, and 540, as well as a copy of the last will and testament of James and Lily Potter,” he says, handing it over. Pomona takes it, as Harry’s face has paled slightly and he does not immediately reach for it.

She tucks it into her robs and nods to Griphook, then says, “Thank you, Griphook, for your service today. I’m sure we’ll both be seeing you again, though probably separately next time.”

He simply returns the nod, and Pomona turns to leave, her hand resting on Harry’s shoulder. He comes easily enough, one hand clutching his small pouch of gold, and takes a deep breath when they emerge back out into the summer sunshine.

“Thank you, Professor Sprout,” he says, pausing at the foot of Gringotts’ steps. “For thinking about the will.”

“I know you don’t have much of your parents,” she says. “Legal language or no, these are their words. And there might be some idea of what else has been left to you of them in there.”

He nods, then turns to look out at the Alley. “Shopping now?”

“Shopping now,” Pomona agrees cheerfully, and guides Harry once more into the bustle.

She delights in Harry’s delight as they collect his school supplies. She points out some better-quality ingredients in the apothecary for him to add to his standard kit, and helps him choose his trunk, and beams as he totes a load of books—including a good few not on the required list—to the counter in Flourish and Blotts. She makes him laugh in Madam Malkin’s by making faces in the mirror as he tries to stand still for the seamstress, and his giggles make Malkin scowl jokingly as he moves, and then smile at his happiness. They buy more than just school robes there, picking up a few sets of clean, fitting shirts and trousers, as well as underclothes, which makes Harry blush. All the way along, Pomona answers Harry’s questions, most of which are variations on the theme of “What’s that?” His curiosity is keen, and as she observes him she wonders what house he might be sorted into; so far she’s seen flashes of a Ravenclaw’s mind, a Hufflepuff’s kindness, a Slytherin’s discretion, and a Gryffindor’s will. He could go any direction; perhaps he’ll be a hatstall.

She takes him to Fortescue’s for an ice cream once they’ve gotten most everything on the list, and then they go to the small optometrist’s office. The witch who is the primary Healer there tuts over the state of Harry’s glasses, but fixes him up right quick with new lenses for the frames he already has and a magical cleaning cloth beside that will also repair any scratches; she gives him a card and tells him to come back if his vision becomes blurry again, then sends them on their way, Harry beaming cheerily at the in-focus world around him. The optometrist is fortunately quite close to Ollivander’s, and as a wand is the last thing required, they head there next. Ollivander’s is as dusty and dim as she remembers from her own trip at the age of 11, with its towering shelves and dark wallpaper. Ollivander himself appears like a wraith from the back of the shop, and greets Harry with his usual canny gaze peering into the boy’s face as if to look under his skin. He talks about Harry’s parents’ wands, and Harry soaks in the information like a flower turning its face to the sun.

Then Pomona waits as Harry tries half the wands in the shop to absolutely no avail. Eventually Ollivander seems to resign himself to something, and he climbs up his ladder to pluck a wand box delicately from the shelf, carrying it as if he were holding some treasure — or an item with a dark curse. He opens the box to Harry and presents it, and Harry draws out the wand of holly and phoenix feather. Around him, the air lights up, his hair standing on end, and sparks trail from the end of the wand; Pomona can suddenly feel the weight of this young boy’s magic, and knows right away that one day he will be quite the wizard.

“Curious,” says Ollivander, and explains as Pomona listens, astonished, that this wand has a twin core to Voldemort’s. Pomona cannot picture the monster who slaughtered hundreds personally in the last war having ever been an eleven-year-old wizard, buying his wand at Ollivander’s like all the rest. But she supposes he must have been, for Ollivander says, “Its brother was wielded by the Dark Lord.”

Harry blinks at him. “The one my parents fought?”

“… Yes,” Ollivander says, and peers over Harry’s head at Pomona, as if to ask why the boy doesn’t know who Voldemort is. She tilts her lips in a wry expression.

Harry, meanwhile, has spun the wand in his fingers, then he says, “Okay. Well, I’m not planning to be much like him.”

“That wand will lead you to greatness, I suspect,” Ollivander says, turning his attention back to Harry. “But there are many kinds of great. Good luck, Harry Potter.”

Harry smiles. “Thank you, Mr. Ollivander.” Then he pays the wandmaker the seven shining Galleons that are his standard fee and walks out of the shop as if there have been no disturbing revelations at all. Out in the street, he looks up at Pomona and says, “Do you think I could get a pet?”

“Of course,” Pomona says, smiling. “As your letter states, you may get an owl, a cat, or a toad.”

Harry thinks for a moment, then says, “I suppose I’d like an owl — they carry post, right?”

“Indeed, Mr. Potter,” Pomona says, and takes him back to the North Side of Diagon, to Eeylopes. In the shop, Harry meets a snowy owl with a slightly standoffish attitude, who nonetheless warms up to Harry quite quickly. He promises to her in a low tone to find a suitable name for her in one of his books; something magical, he says. Pomona pats Harry’s shoulder and takes the shrunken bag of shopping, so that he can carry the owl’s cage.

She takes him to lunch, and over the meal they discuss, among other things, the possibility of going to visit Harry’s parents. Harry stares into his pasta for a long, long time, before he finally says that he doesn’t think he’s feeling up to it. Pomona reassures him that that is completely alright, and that he can visit them any time; she’s unsure she’ll be able to return again to take him herself, as she needs to begin prepping for the coming school year, but he can take himself. Now that he has a wand, she tells him, he can summon the Knight Bus to take him to St. Mungo’s—it doesn’t count as underage magic—and even unaccompanied if he tells the receptionist his name he’ll be directed to the ward where his parents dwell. He nods solemnly and seems to file the information away, and shortly after they get up and make their way back into muggle London, where they once more hail the Bus to take them back to Privet Drive. Harry seems to droop as they step out into the dull neighbourhood, and Pomona cannot blame him in the least. After Diagon, this place seems twice as bland. But Harry will be at Hogwarts in only a few short months, and hopefully away from this place forever.

At the last moment, before surrendering Harry back to his odious relatives, Pomona hands over the documents from Gringotts. “Keep these safe,” she tells him. “And if you have any questions about their contents, feel free to owl me, Gringotts bank, or both. I can be reached by telling your lovely owl to find Pomona Sprout, at Hogwarts, for that is where I will be.”

“Thank you,” Harry says, heartfelt, and accepts the parchment from her hands. “For everything. I promise to study very hard in Herbology!”

She smiles back at him and says, “I would expect nothing else, Mr. Potter! Oh, and one last thing — on September first, you shall have to board the Hogwarts Express at King’s Cross Station to get to school. The train leaves from Platform 9 and 3/4; to reach it, simply walk straight at the barrier between platforms Nine and Ten, and you will pass straight through. Now, let me walk you inside.”

And so she does. She sees his cousin’s second bedroom, in which he has now been installed, and finds that it is still a rubbish circumstance, but better at least than a literal broom cupboard. She feels no guilt at all in leaving him to examine his unshrunken things in his room and going downstairs to quietly but firmly inform his aunt and uncle in detail what will happen to them if Harry arrives at Hogwarts in ill shape, even if she must do it herself. The steely look in her eye and the way she twirls her wand between her fingers seem to convince them.

Pomona leaves Privet Drive feeling that she’s done a good day’s work, providing a child with plenty of resources to navigate his new world and to manage his family until things can be arranged to get him free of them forever. Certainly she will be reporting young Harry’s circumstances to Dumbledore in full. And as summer wears on and she does not hear from Harry again, she decides he must be finding all the answers he needs in his books, and is pleased for him; she’s excited to see him among all the other smiling young faces on September 1st.


	2. Inanimates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Turkey Day to all my Canadian peeps!
> 
> As for this chapter: welcome to Harry's point of view. We're gonna stay here for, uh, the rest of TTP, so I hope you like it. Also, this chapter is like 6k, which is closer to the average than last chapter's 4k, but it does sort of vary. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Harry fully intends to go visit his parents in the magic hospital that Professor Sprout told him about, but Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon keep him locked in his new bedroom almost constantly for the rest of the summer, except when he’s let out to use the loo or fix breakfast. The one time he tries to sneak away, Dudley catches him and wrestles him to the ground and sits on him, holding his wand and threatening to break it, until Uncle Vernon arrives and bodily throws Harry back into his room. Fortunately Harry has plenty of books to read, because otherwise it would be a very boring few weeks. He reads the books about the magical world that Professor Sprout recommended as introductions, and he ventures into the first chapters of his new textbooks, though it mostly seems like mumbo-jumbo; there are a lot of words he doesn’t understand, or doesn’t understand in context. He even does his best to read the manifest from his parents’ vault at Gringotts, though he can’t really make heads or tails of it. Too many numbers to make sense of when he doesn’t really know what a Galleon is worth, and long lists of books and items with names and titles that mean nothing to him. He resolves to bring it out again another time, if he meets someone he can trust to explain things; maybe he’ll ask Professor Sprout when he gets to Hogwarts, if there’s no one better.

On August 31st, while he is making the bacon, he reminds his aunt and uncle that if they don’t take him to the train station tomorrow, Professor Sprout will know he’s missing and she’ll come get him. This makes Aunt Petunia go a little pale and Uncle Vernon go a little purple, which Harry takes a small bit of pleasure in, even knowing that he probably shouldn’t. That evening, before Aunt Petunia locks him in, she tells him that he’ll be getting up early to wash himself properly before they take him out in public. He nods, and then the door clicks shut in his face and he’s left in the dark. In her cage, Hedwig—he’d named his owl for a figure in one of the history books he’d bought—hoots softly at him, and he goes to open the window so that she can go out and hunt. Before she does, she permits him to stroke her head a few times, then flies out on silent wings.

Harry sighs and settles onto the thin mattress that’s his now. Better than his last one, for sure; he’d started to outgrow the cupboard, and hadn’t seen much chance of them letting him move to this bedroom… ever, really. But he’s got this room now. And his wand, and his books, and Hedwig. More than he’s ever owned in his entire life all put together, multiplied by ten, and tomorrow he gets to start a whole new life and leave the Dursleys behind. And he knows now that maybe his life could have been better. That it wasn’t because he’s a freak that he ended up here.

One of the books Professor Sprout had suggested to him was a contemporary history of the war against Lord Voldemort and his followers, the Death Eaters. There were two chapters on the end of the war. One was entirely about a family called the Longbottoms and their son, Neville, who was called “the Boy-Who-Lived” in the book. It’s kind of a silly title, Harry thinks, but supposedly Neville had had some magic when he was a baby that had let him survive the attack by Voldemort that had killed his parents and had destroyed Voldemort himself. He’s Harry’s age, their birthdays actually back-to-back; he thinks maybe he’ll meet Neville at Hogwarts.

The second chapter was about, well, everything else. Including the Potters. James Potter, the book said, was a pureblooded Light wizard and had been a decorated Auror—magical police, apparently—who had fought bravely against the Death Eaters. His wife, muggleborn Lily Evans-Potter, had not worked, but had been engaged in an apprenticeship to become a Charms Master and was reputedly quite talented in both her chosen field and in Potions. The pair had been tortured into insanity by brothers Rabastan and Rodolphus Lestrange, and Rodolphus’s wife Bellatrix Lestrange nee Black. Their son, the book said, had been ushered into protective custody by Albus Dumbledore, in hopes that any remaining Death Eaters not yet apprehended would not be able to harm him. Unfortunately for Harry, the book did not say anything about the fate of one Sirius Black, who according to his parents’ will was supposed to be Harry’s godfather and guardian. But from the very first chapter the book had been full of stories of people who were killed, and sometimes they only reported numbers. Sirius Black had been mentioned a few times in conjunction with James and a few others as being a skilled Auror and fierce fighter, opposing the Death Eaters strongly, even those from his own family, and then he hadn’t been mentioned again. Harry thinks that probably he’d been one of those nameless numbers who’d died.

He could have owled Professor Sprout to ask about Sirius Black, he knows. Or Gringotts. But he’d decided that he has to figure these things out for himself. He doesn’t think he’s going to have someone around all the time at Hogwarts who he knows and can depend on to help him, and if primary school has taught him anything it’s that making friends can be risky. And, well, that Harry is a bit strange sometimes, and other kids don’t often like him in the first place. So he hasn’t owled, and has just puzzled it all out himself as best he can. He hopes that there will be more books at Hogwarts to answer the questions he still has.

And now he is only a single sleep from getting on a magic train at a magic platform that would take him to a magic school where he would get to use magic. Because he’s a _wizard_. It’s everything he’d dreamed of as a little kid without ever realizing that it’s all true. Harry falls asleep excited, then wakes up excited. He springs out of bed and grabs his trunk and barely waits for Aunt Petunia to finish opening the locks on his door before he throws it open. He grins up at her, even though she’s not who he’s happy with, and for some reason it makes her blanch a bit. He doesn’t care. He’s going to _Hogwarts_.

He rides the high of _leaving_ all through the morning, through piling into the car with Uncle Vernon (Dudley whining about not getting to go), through arriving and being unceremoniously left at the kerb. He makes his way into King’s Cross, looking out for directions toward platforms 9 and 10 as Professor Sprout had told him. The station is extremely busy, with businessmen and families pushing back and forth, hauling suitcases and trunks. A woman with a large handbag jostles Harry as he maneuvers his cart through the crowd, and he shrinks in on himself slightly, trying not to be in the way. Eventually, he finds himself standing in front of a barrier. On one side there is a sign that says 9, and on the other, one that says 10. _Just walk straight at the barrier_ , he reminds himself. That’s what Professor Sprout had said. But… it looks like solid brick. And he hasn’t seen anyone else push through. He’s pretty sure that Professor Sprout wouldn’t be the type to have him on just for a laugh, but not _that_ sure.

Still, he thinks, looking around. A boy by himself, loitering in an obvious way, is starting to attract attention. The last thing he wants is to be approached by a platform attendant and have to find some excuse that isn’t “I’m trying to get to a magic platform.” So: he has to try it. And if he lands on his face, well, at least he’ll know. He steels himself and pushes his cart forward, walking as confidently as he can at the wall. Just before impact, he closes his eyes, ready for the crunch—but it doesn’t come. He feels an indistinct shiver, and when he opens his eyes he’s standing on a bustling platform not unlike the one he just left. Now, though, the people moving about are wearing robes in every colour from black and canary yellow. Parents are kissing the cheeks of their children, older siblings are hugging younger, and students of all ages are loading their luggage onto the train. And, oh, the _train_. It’s brilliantly red and steaming, with a bronze plaque on its front that says in bold letters _Hogwarts Express_. Harry, staring, can only think: _yes_.

He pushes his cart through the crowd, past a woman in a long black dress with a vulture on her hat. She’s lecturing a boy with round cheeks in a low tone; a few people around them seem to be watching him with wide eyes. Harry frowns, but decides that even if other people are going to eavesdrop rudely on some stranger’s conversation, he doesn’t have to. Instead he makes his way toward the train and starts loading up his things. His trunk is very heavy, filled with all his books and clothes, and between that and his owl cage—he’d sent Hedwig off to meet him at Hogwarts, and he hopes she’ll be waiting when he gets there as Professor Sprout had said—he struggles to get himself and his things on board.

From behind him, someone clears their throat. He turns and finds himself faced with a boy about his own age with brown skin a few shades darker than Harry’s own. Behind him is a tall, beautiful woman with olive skin and similar features to the boy’s, including brown, almond-shaped eyes. She gives him a smile, and then the boy says in a faintly accented voice, “You’re blocking the way.”

“Uh, sorry, my trunk…” Harry replies, trailing off awkwardly.

“Allow me,” says the woman. She has the same accent as her… son? But slightly stronger—Italian, maybe? She pulls a wand from her sleeve and waves it, murmuring an incantation, and a moment later Harry’s trunk becomes weightless in his grasp.

“Oh!” he says. “Thanks. That’s much better.” He gives it a shove, and it slides up the step and onto the floor of the train with no difficulty.

“You are welcome,” the woman says, and then seems to wait for a moment before turning away from Harry. Her expression is very clear, but Harry sees a faint twitch of irritation on the boy’s face.

He’s not sure what he’s done, but he says, “Sorry,” anyway.

The boy rolls his eyes. “Muggleborns,” he mutters, turning away.

“Er,” says Harry. He’s not sure if he should argue with that — he’s not a muggleborn, after all. His parents were wixen. But… he _was_ muggle-raised. And he’s clearly gone against some kind of magical manners.

Paralyzed by dilemma, he hovers awkwardly for a moment, which gives the woman enough time to frown at her son and say, “Introduce yourself. His poor manners are not his fault.”

“Mother,” the boy drawls, but sighs and turns back to Harry and offers his hand. “Blaise Zabini. A pleasure.”

“Harry Potter,” Harry says, and shakes the boy, Blaise’s, hand. “You too.”

The boy blinks. “Harry Potter? Hm. Sorry for thinking you were a muggleborn.”

“Uh, you… know who I am?”

Blaise shrugs. “Sure. I was taught history the same as all other pureblood heirs—the Potters were quite well known.”

“Oh. Sorry, I… well, good to know. I don’t know much about my family,” Harry says. Behind Blaise, Mrs. Zabini (Harry assumes) looks slightly startled, as does her son.

“Well,” says Blaise. He hesitates for a moment, glances over his shoulder at his mother. She just gives him a calm look, and he sighs. “Look. Perhaps I’ll see you around. Now please stop blocking the steps, the train will be leaving soon.”

“Oh!” says Harry, again. He knows he sounds like an idiot, but he can’t really help it. “Right, sorry.” He turns back to his trunk and collects his owl cage, then climbs aboard the train. For a moment, he’d thought he was going to make a friend. But no, at least not yet. If he sees Blaise again… maybe. He’d seemed nice enough, if a bit of a snob.

Harry walks down the train until he finds an empty compartment, not quite willing to put himself through asking for a seat when it seems like a lot of people will know each other already and he knows no one. He doesn’t want to ask for a seat that someone is saving. He manages to get his trunk up onto the rack above the seats in the compartment he finds, and hopes that Mrs. Zabini’s spell will last until the end of the trip so that he can get it back down without dropping the whole weight of it on his head. Then he stands on the seat so that he can dig out a book. The first one that comes to hand is _Hogwarts: A History_ , which he’s already read a good chunk of but hasn’t finished. Most of the other books he’s flipped through. The Potions text looked particularly interesting, with all its recipes and footnotes about ingredient effects, and the long appendix of different things that can be used in Potions. So had the Transfiguration text, though a lot of it had been very technical. Still, none of those are really good for reading in the way a history book is, so he’s been enjoying this one, and is happy to have grabbed it. He settles down next to the window and cracks open the book, willing to wait until someone else joined him. With the number of people he’d seen outside, he’s sure he’ll have at least one compartment companion.

Sure enough, within about ten minutes there’s a timid tap at the door of the compartment, and then it slides open. He looks up and sees a dark-skinned girl with riotously curly hair standing in the doorway, her trunk sitting in the walkway behind her.

“Hello,” she says. “I don’t suppose I could join you?”

“Go ahead,” Harry says, gesturing at the seats around him.

“Thank you,” she says, sounding relieved, and drags her trunk inside. With a grunt, she lifts it up, and Harry jumps up to help her get it onto the rack without dropping it. Once it’s settled she thanks him again and flops into the seat opposite him.

“I’m Harry Potter,” he says, and offers a hand to shake.

She smiles and shakes. “Hermione Granger,” she says. “I think I read about you?”

“In _He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named: The War of 1970 to ‘81_?”

“Yes!” Hermione says, her face lighting up. “Oh, I’m so glad I’m not the only one who wanted to do some reading before school! I’ve read _Modern Magical History_ , too, and you’re not mentioned, though your parents are—in _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts,_ too. _Great Magical Events of the Twentieth Century_ is too broad…”

“Er,” Harry says. Hermione speaks very fast. “I’ve just read the one. Professor Sprout came to tell me about magic, and she said I ought to read up a bit on recent history, recommended that book, though not any of the others. She said I ought to know a bit about recent magical history. I didn’t really know much about my family before that. I grew up with muggles, you see.”

“Oh, my parents are muggles,” Hermione says. “I understand. I had Professor McGonagall come to introduce me, and she said the same — about knowing the history, that is, and obviously not because it was _about_ me. Just so that I wouldn’t be completely lost.”

“It’s a good idea. I get the feeling that there are a lot of things that aren’t in books, but at least it’s somewhere to start.

“Of course,” Hermione says, nodding. She’s a bit imperious in her bearing, Harry thinks, but she seems so pleased to have someone else who’s from the muggle world that it softens it a bit. “It’s a whole different culture, you know. Different morals and norms, different currency and economy, even different food! Why, did you know…”

Harry sits back in his seat as she launches into a ramble about all the things she’s learned about the magical world since her introduction at the start of the summer, and there’s plenty for her to say about it. From the sounds of it, her parents practically bought the bookstore when they first went to Diagon Alley, and since then she’s read near everything cover-to-cover, including their textbooks. Harry admires her dedication, honestly; even with days locked up with nothing else to do, he hasn’t made nearly as much headway. Still, he’s read enough to be able to have a conversation.

Eventually, Hermione says, “… and I would love to be sorted into Gryffindor—they say Dumbledore was one—though I suppose I’ll more likely be in Ravenclaw—”

“I think you could be a Gryffindor,” Harry cuts in.

She blinks, briefly derailed, and then says, “Really?”

He nods. “Sure. Gryffindor’s for the brave, right? And… the forthright. And the headstrong. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem pretty forthright and headstrong to me. Plus, you know, anyone can be brave.”

“Oh,” Hermione says, her voice small. “Well, I don’t know… Most people think I’m just bookish.”

“It’s not about what other people think,” Harry says. “I don’t really know how they decide, but it seems like it’s more about who you actually are, right?”

“Right…” she says, her spinning thoughts near-visible behind her eyes. “Well, where do you think you’ll go, Harry?”

He shrugs. “No clue. Could go anywhere, really. I like books and learning like the book said Ravenclaws do, but I’m also a pretty hard worker and I’m loyal where it counts, like a Hufflepuff. I’m not afraid of much, so I guess I’m brave, but only because I’m good at looking after myself—Slytherins are supposed to have good self-preservations skills, right? I’ve got a bit of all four.”

“I see,” Hermione says, still looking thoughtful. Then she laughs and says, “Where do you suppose self-awareness gets put?”

Harry laughs too. “Don’t rightly know, do I?” he replies. “We’ll see when we get there.”

“Yes.” Hermione grins at him across the compartment, and he grins back.

They’re quiet for a while after that, watching the English countryside flow by outside the window. Around half-past twelve, a knock on the compartment door startles both of them out of their reverie. They look over to see a plump witch pushing a cart piled high with brightly-coloured items. She slides the door open and says, “Anything from the cart, dearies?”

“Oh,” says Hermione, looking hesitant. “Well, my parents packed me a lunch…”

Harry looks at her, looks at the witch with the cart, and then digs into his pocket for the money he has left after his trip to Diagon Alley. There are several heavy gold Galleons there, and he figures that’ll more than do for some treats. “One of everything,” he says, pulling out the gold.

In short order, he’s exchanged his money for a small mountain of snacks and treats, including a few duplicates. He and Hermione take their time digging through the pile, reading packages and trying to figure out the things that don’t have a description. Some things (“They can’t really mean _every_ flavour, can they?” “I don’t know, Hermione, wixen have got some awful strange stuff…”) are more mystifying than others (“Chocolate Frog… well, that seems pretty clear?” “Yes—oh no! Harry, catch it!”).

The collector’s card in the chocolate frog box has a portrait of Dumbledore, which both Harry and Hermione admire briefly before it vanishes, leaving only a short biography of the Headmaster behind. “Seems like a pretty impressive bloke to be teaching in a school,” Harry says. “Shouldn’t he be in government or something?”

“Well, he sort of is, isn’t he?” Hermione says, gesturing at the titles listed on the card. “I wonder how he has time for it all…”

“Maybe wixen can time travel?” Harry suggests.

“That’s just silly. Magic is one thing, but the universe has _rules_.”

He nods, remembering what little he’d learned about scientific rules in primary school. “‘Spose you’re right.”

They make their way through the rest of the sweets, and then collapse back into their seats, both feeling thoroughly fat and happy; Harry thinks this is maybe the first time in his life he’s felt that way. Outside the landscape has transformed slightly, turning into the rolling hills of wilder country than the manicured farmland and little villages surrounding London. They’re making their way further north, onward into the afternoon.

After a time, someone slides open their compartment door without knocking, and both Harry and Hermione turn to look. Standing in the doorframe is a redheaded boy with freckles dotted all over his pale face, and behind him is the round-faced boy Harry had seen on the platform, looking quite bashful.

“Hullo,” says the redhead. “Don’t suppose either of you has seen a toad? It’s just that Neville’s lost his.”

Behind him, the round-faced boy, apparently Neville, waves sheepishly.

“Oh, no,” says Hermione. “We haven’t. So sorry. But… not Neville Longbottom?”

Neville blushes slightly, and says, “Well, yes. Nice to meet you, uh…?”

“Hermione Granger!” she says, and springs up out of her seat to shake his hand vigorously. “I’ve read about you, you see. It’s a pleasure.”

“Thanks,” he says, seeming not quite to know what to do with her. “Er.”

“I’m Ron Weasley,” the boy says to Harry, while Hermione begins rambling to Neville about the books she’d seen his name in. “Who’re you?”

“Harry Potter,” Harry says. “Nice to meet you.”

“Oh!” Ron says. “Yeah, sure. I’ve heard of you, y’know; my parents knew yours back in the day.”

“Oh,” says Harry, who at this point has almost grown used to people knowing who he is without him telling them. He glances at Hermione, who is still going at full steam. “Sorry, she’s, uh, excited.”

“Yeah,” Ron says, and rolls his eyes. “Neville, come on, we should keep looking.”

Neville looks away from Hermione, a bit wide-eyed. “Right,” he says.

“Oh, right, I’m sorry,” Hermione says, breaking off, “you’re looking for your toad. I didn’t mean to keep you! Do you need any help?”

“No,” says Ron, a bit abruptly. He grabs Neville by the wrist and drags him out of the compartment. “Bye!”

“Bye,” say Harry and Hermione in near-unison, watching them go. Then they look at each other.

“Well,” says Hermione. “They seemed nice.”

Ron seemed a bit rude, actually. But not as if he meant to be mean, so he supposes Hermione is right, and he nods. “Yeah.”

They take their seats again in their compartment and go back to watching out the window, occasionally commenting on things they’ve seen. Hermione has travelled around in Europe a bit with her parents, Harry learns; he’s never gone further than the zoo, and enjoys her stories of Paris and Amsterdam. As the day draws on and it begins to get dark, Harry feels a giddy energy growing in him until he’s not sure how much longer he can stand to sit on the train. Hermione must be feeling the same, because she decides to go up to the front of the train to ask the conductor how long it’ll be until they arrive. When she gets back, it’s coming up on evening proper, and she says that it won’t be much longer. “I think we’d better put on our robes,” she says.

Harry nods agreement and they each reach up to dig through their trunks for the long black school robes to go over their clothes, putting away their jackets. Harry’d bought a few neat white shirts and pairs of black slacks at Madame Malkin’s when he’d bought his robes so that he could wear something that fit a bit better during school, but for now he’s still wearing Dudley’s hand-me-downs. Fortunately, Hermione hasn’t commented. Once they sit back down, they exchange grins, admiring one another and themselves in their wixen clothes. The black robe, with its loose sleeves and long hem, feels very right on Harry’s shoulders. And it’ll be good for the cold northern weather—he can’t really imagine that a great castle up in the highlands like this could be anything but drafty.

Not so long after they’re changed, the train slows and finally jerks to a halt. A voice echoes through the train, instructing them to leave their luggage on board; Harry and Hermione shrug at one another and pile off the train with all the rest, looking about. From one end of the platform, a booming voice shouts, “First years! First years, over here!” and they both look over to see a ginormous man looming above the crowd. They trade a wide-eyed glance, then head toward him. He has to be at least two and a half metres tall, and three times the width of a normal person, wearing a massive dingy overcoat with a beard and wild hair both bushy enough to match him. His voice echoes all down the platform, and soon enough he has gathered around him a crowd of people all around Harry’s own age: the other first years. He spots Neville and Ron standing together, Neville looking quite forlorn and still lacking his toad, and Blaise, who seems to have gravitated toward a small cluster of other well-groomed children, including a thin boy with black hair and near-sallow cheeks and a blonde girl whose bright blue-green eyes stand out even in the dimness of the evening. Most of the students, in fact, seem to be in pairs or threes: groups that had met on the train, or perhaps had known each other before coming to Hogwarts. Harry bites his lip and hopes that he won’t be separated from Hermione by their houses—it would be nice to know someone.

The large man guides the group away from the train platform and down a path to a small sheltered dock with a fleet of waiting boats. Harry doesn’t see any oars, but he clambers in after Hermione. They’re joined by Neville and Ron, both of whom are a bit quiet and wide-eyed. _That makes three of us_ , Harry thinks, knowing that he’s staring at everything. Then the boat starts moving with a slight jerk, and he clutches the side as it drifts through the smooth black water. The boat’s passage makes little ripples in the mirror-like surface, and he watches those to try to calm himself. After a moment, they pass through a veil of hanging vines and out onto the wide expanse of a lake… and there before him is the castle. Hogwarts looms out of the night with many lit windows like peering eyes, examining the children coming to meet it for the very first time. It has tall, spindly towers silhouetted against the dark navy sky, and Harry shivers with awe, staring up at it. Next to him, Hermione gasps and leans over Harry to try to get a better look, until he’s worried she’ll push him out of the boat.

Neville, behind Harry, gasps too, a bit delayed, and Harry turns to look at him just in time to catch sight of a slender tentacle waving at their passing party of little boats before it slips back beneath the water. He meets Neville’s eyes and reckons that the shock on the other boy’s face is mirrored on his own.

“Oh, it’s amazing,” Hermione says, her voice a whisper.

“Yeah,” Harry whispers back, turning to look again at the castle. This is where he’ll spend most of the next seven years of his life. This will be his home, and it’s beautiful.

All too soon the boats have made their way across the Black Lake and the giant man supervises everyone getting out, probably to make sure no one tumbles into the water. Neville stumbles and almost falls, but the man grabs his arm just in time and tugs him more firmly onto the dock, saying, “Alright there, Neville?”

“Yes, Hagrid,” Neville mumbles.

Hagrid leads them up another short path once everyone is back on dry land and up to the grand front doors of Hogwarts. They’re massive, made of what looks like solid wood, firm and imposing. Hagrid pushes one open and ushers Harry and the other first years inside, and they congregate into a small clump in the middle of the high-ceilinged entrance hall, staring around at everything they can see. The hall itself is so large that Harry thinks all of 4 Privet Drive could have fit in it, and hallways lead off of it left and right. There are paintings and tapestries on the walls, and straight ahead, the long grand staircase, at the top of which is standing the slender figure of a witch. She’s wearing green and black velvet robes and a black pointed hat, and her hands are tucked behind her back as she watches them. Her hair is pulled back into a severe style that matches the stern expression on her face.

“Here you go, Professor McGonagall—fresh crop of first years,” Hagrid says, shutting the giant doors behind them with a low boom.

“Thank you, Hagrid,” the witch says, and takes a few steps down the staircase. “I will take them from here.”

“Right,” Hagrid says, and walks away down one of the side passages, leaving them with Professor McGonagall.

“After me,” Professor McGonagall says, and leads them up the stairs and down the grand hallway a short distance, stopping in front of yet another impressive set of doors, only slightly smaller than the entrance to the school.

Once he’s gone, she says, “Welcome to Hogwarts. My name, as you may have ascertained, is Professor Minerva McGonagall. I teach Transfiguration at this school and serve as the Head of Gryffindor House. In a moment you shall be joining your fellow students for the start-of-term banquet, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, each of you will be sorted into one of the four Houses. This ceremony is important because while you are here at Hogwarts your House will be like your family. You will have classes with the rest of your House, share a dormitory with them, and be seated with them at meals.

“Each of the Houses—Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin—as its own unique and noble history, and has produced many great wixen. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your House points, and any misbehaviour will lose them. At the end of each year, the House Cup is awarded to the House with the most points; I hope that all of you will strive to earn that honour.”

She looks around at all of them, her tawny brown eyes lingering briefly on a few faces, including Harry’s. He looks back, trying to seem brave beneath her neutral, measuring gaze. Gryffindor, he knows, is the House of the Brave, and he doesn’t want her to think he’s hopeless right out of the gate.

“I will give you all a moment to smarten yourselves up, and then we shall enter the Great Hall,” she says.

Harry glances at Neville and Ron, still standing beside himself and Hermione; Neville’s cloak is fastened incorrectly, and Ron has dirt on his nose. Harry sighs and tries to flatten down his hair a little, and leans over to Hermione to ask, “Is it okay?”

She purses her lips, then shrugs. “It isn’t any worse.”

“Thanks,” Harry mutters.

Then Professor McGonagall clears her throat and says, “With me, please.” She turns on her heel and pushes on the doors, and they swing open without a sound. As soon as the doors are open Harry can hear the sound of chatter from inside the hall, but when they start to enter it falls away, until there are only a few voices whispering.

The Great Hall is wondrous. It’s at least as large as the Entrance Hall, and it has four long tables, above which are floating lit candles. The wax that drips off of them seems to vanish in mid-air, and Harry’s gaze follows their soft orange light upward until he finds himself staring up at a starry sky, a match to the one visible outside. Faint wisps of cloud drift across, and Harry cannot wait to see it on a rainy day, or a foggy one, or on a sunny afternoon. He almost trips over the hem of his robe and forces himself to refocus on what’s closer to the ground: namely the students filling each of the long tables. They all wear black robes like Harry’s own, though theirs have badges and coloured trim on them. All of them are staring, and Harry has to force himself not to quail. Up in front of them, there’s another long table on a dais at which the professors are seated. There’s a single empty seat for Professor McGonagall on the right hand of a grand chair in which an old man is sitting: Albus Dumbledore himself. His blue eyes twinkle at them, a benevolent look on his face as he watches the nervous clump of eleven-year-olds make their way down the central aisle of the Hall toward the front.

Directly in front of Professor Dumbledore’s seat at the middle of the hall is a stool. On that stool is a ratty looking brown hat, pointed like Professor McGonagall’s but patched and dirty. It looks like it probably smells. They stop just in front of it, and Professor McGonagall leaves them to stand behind the stool, pulling a scroll out of her robes as she goes. Before she unrolls it, however, she pauses, and the hat on the chair twitches. A great tear in its front opens up like a mouth and its top half folds until it looks quite a bit like a face, and then it began to sing:

 

_“Oh you may not think I’m pretty_

_But don’t judge on what you see_

_I’ll eat myself if you can find_

_A smarter hat than me._

_You can keep your bowlers black,_

_Your top hats sleek and tall,_

_For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat_

_And I can cap them all._

_There’s nothing hidden in your head_

_The Sorting Hat can’t see,_

_So try me on and I will tell you_

_Where you ought to be._

_You might belong in Gryffindor,_

_Where dwell the brave at heart,_

_Their daring, nerve, and chivalry_

_Set Gryffindors apart;_

_You might belong in Hufflepuff,_

_Where they are just and loyal,_

_Those patient Hufflepuffs are true_

_And unafraid of toil;_

_Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,_

_If you’ve a ready mind,_

_Where those of wit and learning_

_Will always find their kind;_

_Or perhaps in Slytherin_

_You’ll make your real friends,_

_Those cunning folk use any means_

_To achieve their ends._

_So put me on! Don’t be afraid!_

_And don’t get in a flap!_

_You’re in safe hands (though I have none)_

_For I’m a Thinking Cap!”_

 

Everyone in the hall bursts into applause and the Hat bows its tip to them. Once the noise dies down several long minute later, Professor McGonagall unrolls her scroll.

“When I call your name, you will sit on the stool and wear the hat to be Sorted,” she says. “Abbott, Hannah!”

A blonde girl with very pink cheeks jumps slightly in surprise, then scurries up toward the Hat. As she does, Hermione leans over and whispers, “I’m glad it’s not a test.”

“Me too,” he whispers back.

“HUFFLEPUFF!” cries the Hat, shortly after having been dropped on Hannah’s head.

The table on the far right cheers loudly and Hannah hops off the stool, beaming, and heads over there. She receives several hugs and pats on the back from her new housemates as Professor McGonagall says, “Bones, Susan!”

Another blonde, this girl with a thinner face. The hat falls down right over her eyes, and there are about five long seconds before it shouts, again, “HUFFLEPUFF!”

“Boot, Terry!” is next, and he goes to “RAVENCLAW!”

And so on from there. There are almost forty first-years, and one by one they go up and are sorted. “Brown, Lavender!” becomes the first new Gryffindor; “Bulstrode, Millicent!” becomes the first new Slytherin.

By the time the professor gets to “Granger, Hermione!” Harry is feeling not a little like he’s going to be sick. The hat sits on his new friend’s head for a long time, longer than anyone else so far, and then finally it shouts, “GRYFFINDOR!”

Harry claps as hard as anyone sitting at the Gryffindor table, and she beams at him before bouncing down the steps to take her seat with her new housemates. She looks fully pleased with herself, and keeps casting glances up at the head table, where Dumbledore is sitting. Harry can only hope that he’ll be as happy wherever he ends up; he still isn’t sure he has any preferences.

When Neville’s name is called there’s a bout of intense whispering from everyone already seated. The hat, however, doesn’t spend much time at all on Neville’s head before crying out, “GRYFFINDOR!” This causes an immense burst of cheering from Gryffindor House, including a brief chant of “We got Longbottom!” He, blushing, ends up sitting next to Hermione, who pats his shoulder. But he’s the only name that Harry recognizes between Hermione and the moment where Professor McGonagall calls “Potter, Harry!”

Harry takes a fortifying breath and then walks up to the stool. The Hat is placed upon his head, and there’s a brief second of cool silence wherein he becomes very nervous indeed, before a small voice says into his ear, _Hmm. Difficult. Courageous, yes. And intelligent, curious. Loyal and dedicated… There’s talent here too, oh goodness, is there talent—and a thirst to prove it, now isn’t that interesting. But where to put you?_

Harry tries to decide how to respond to this. All he can think is, _I can be anything I want. I can by any_ one _that_ I _want._

 _Well then_ , says the Hat. _I know just what to do with you._

“SLYTHERIN!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Sorting Hat song is quoted directly from _Philosopher's Stone_ , and McGonagall's speech is closely paraphrased. There are other details borrowed from canon as well, but those're the big ones.
> 
> Also, welcome to my version of Harry Potter, where more than one character (even more than one character with a speaking part!) is brown. See: Blaise, Harry, and Hermione in this chapter, and more to come. Fight me if you don't like it. Come do a happy dance with me if you do! I hope we're all fans of diversity here.
> 
> Last but not least, congratulate me, for I have finished a chapter of Book Two this week, which means I'm maintaining my buffer (also, it was a stupidly long chapter, so...) Total word count on Book Two is currently ~27k.
> 
> As always, comments feed the writing machine. I even reply to most of them!


	3. Settling In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This hasn't had a second proofread like usual because I'm exhausted, so if you catch any typos please feel free to point them out in the comments. Pretty sure my wonderful beta caught everything, but you never know.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

 

The entrance to the Slytherin common room is down in the dungeons, hidden within a warren of twisting passages where Harry is sure he’ll be lost an awful lot before he gets used to it. It’s chilly in the underground halls, and he holds himself tightly inside of his robes, hoping to retain a little bit more warmth. The cold shoulder he’s receiving from the other Slytherins definitely isn’t helping.

The Slytherin first years he’d ended up sitting with at dinner had been… less than friendly. Not cruel, really, but they’d mostly ignored him, talking to one another. They’d all known each other, or at least known _of_ each other already. Blaise had sat with the thin boy and the blue-eyed girl from the platform, whose names, Harry had learned, were Theodore Nott and Daphne Greengrass, as well as a very small girl with black hair named Tracey Davis. A pointy-faced boy with white-blond hair, Draco Malfoy, had gathered Gregory Goyle, Vincent Crabbe, and Pansy Parkinson around him and spoken mostly with them. The only girl who’d kept to herself was Millicent Bulstrode, but even she had exchanged nods with all of the others when they sat down and only given Harry a cool look. It doesn’t bode well, he thinks, for his chances of making friends… but hopefully it’ll get better over time, once they get to know him better. With eight of them in his year, Harry hopes that at least a few will be willing to be friends—Blaise had seemed nice enough before. He wasn’t too sure about any of the others. He’d listened in for a while to all of the different conversations. Draco’s conversation with his friends had made him seem mostly a bit full of himself, since he hadn’t really let any of the others talk. Blaise and Theodore and Daphne had been catching up about their summers, and Daphne had mentioned she had sisters; the others had talked about their parents: Blaise his mother, and Theodore his father. Millicent hadn’t said a word to anyone. Neither had Harry.

Without anyone to talk to, Harry had occupied himself with eating and with looking around the Great Hall. The food had been absolutely wonderful: every one of the rich, delicious things that the Dursleys had never given Harry more than a taste of. They’d never exactly starved him, but he’d often been hungry and certainly had never been allowed more than a little of any of the good foods that Dudley had preferred to hog for himself. Once his belly was overfull and happy, he’d glanced around. Hermione was occupied in an animated conversation with an older Gryffindor, a redhead who looked a bit like Ron but with fewer freckles and a narrower face. Up at the head table, Professor McGonagall was seated next to the Headmaster and they were having a quiet conversation. On either side of them were all the other teachers, including Hagrid who’d been chatting boisterously with his neighbour, and Professor Sprout, who’d smiled at Harry briefly when she saw him looking. There was also a professor whose eyes Harry had met when he looked that way because the man had been staring at him: a pale man with a hooked nose and shoulder-length black hair that seemed to bleed into the pure black robes he wore. There was a glimmer in his eyes, also black, that had made Harry tense a little, reminded of the way his uncle sometimes looked at him, but the professor, whoever he was, hadn’t made any sort of face at him before turning away to say something to the turbaned professor next to him. Whoever that was, Harry had thought, he wasn’t looking forward to meeting him.

At the end of dinner, one of the fifth year Prefects, a girl named Gemma Farley, had come over and introduced herself, and now she’s leading their little cluster down into the dungeons. Harry’s sure he’s gawking more than the others; they all seem so composed. But he can’t stop looking at the richly coloured tapestries and the moving portraits, admiring the sturdy stonework of the walls, breathing in the earth smell of the air down this deep in the castle. Sure of his housemates or not, all of Hogwarts is amazing so far, even the dungeons, and he’s looking forward to his time here.

The Slytherin common room is hidden behind a stretch of plain wall, though Farley points out a distinctive formation of moss in the bottom corner that they ought to look for when trying to get back in. The password, she says, is “serpentine”, and will remain so for two weeks, after which it will change and the new password will be posted. When she says the word, the stones of the wall shimmer and then vanish, revealing a dark wood door set into the wall, which Farley opens and ushers the first-years through.

The room that they step into is lit with pale green light like moonlight through water that filters in from the windows, and by a fireplace and many candles that are lit and placed around the room. One wall has bookshelves framing a cork noticeboard, at which Harry does a double take; it seems too normal to be found in a place with such grand atmosphere. The furniture is all done in dark green and black, with many high-backed chairs and a plush sofa scattered around the room, seemingly arranged to make it possible for small groups to gather and talk or study. Above the fireplace’s mantlepiece is hung a portrait of the snake, which turns to look at them and bares its fangs when it notices several of the first-years staring. Students from other years are filtering into the common room around them, a few at a time as they leave dinner, and some vanish off into corridors that lead to the left and the right of the fireplace. Farley ushers them further in, and once they’re gathered in a clump in front of the fireplace she says, “Now, Professor Snape will be down in just a moment. Before he gets here to do his beginning of the year talk, I’m to tell you a few things.

“First, as I’ve already mentioned, the new password will be posted on the noticeboard over there when it changes. Also on the noticeboard is space for you to post a note about a lost item, or if you’ve found something that’s not yours. As well, older students will sometimes post to say that they’re willing to offer tutoring in a certain subject. You’re best off asking one of those who’s volunteered, because while other students might agree, they’ll usually ask for something in return. Up to you whether you need the help that badly,” she says, and smiles. “Still, we try to keep our academics up in this House. We’re not quite the sticklers Ravenclaw are, but if you shame the House in your classes you won’t get much love from any of the rest of us. Clear?”

“Clear,” the first-years echo in an uneven chorus.

“Now, as to dorms: boys and girls are separated, of course. The left corridor is girls’ dorms, and the right corridor is boys’. You’re split into groups of three or four, so all the girls together and then the boys in half; the dorm you’re assigned to is your dorm for all seven years, so you’d better either like your roommates or learn to like them. Your names will be on the doors—just look for them when you’re sent to bed. All your things will be there already.”

There’s a round of nods. Harry hopes uncharitably that he isn’t stuck rooming with the braggart Draco Malfoy.

“Breakfast starts at 6:30 in the morning, but so long as you make it to the Great Hall before 8 there will still be food. Classes start at 8, so leave yourself time to eat and get to your classroom—at least fifteen minutes of travel, I would suggest. Your schedules will be handed out tomorrow morning, so try to get to breakfast early, and don’t you _dare_ show up in your pajamas,” Farley says, with a stern look. “We here in Slytherin House pride ourselves on our appearance. Tidy yourselves up properly before leaving in the mornings.”

Another round of nods.

“Any questions?” Farley asks.

Harry shakes his head, as do most of the others. Tracey Davis puts up her hand, and when Farley points at her, she says, “My mum said that people might be mean to me if I turned out to be a Slytherin. Is that true?”

“I believe I will answer that, Miss Farley,” says a silky voice from behind Harry. He jumps and turns to look, glad that he isn’t the only one who hadn’t noticed someone come up behind them.

Looming over their small group is none other than the dark-clothed professor from the Great Hall, the one who had looked at Harry with distaste in his eyes. Silently Harry curses his luck, trying not to let it show on his face.

“I am Professor Severus Snape, Potions Master at Hogwarts and Head of Slytherin House,” the man says, each word deliberate. He’s tall and thin, and he looms easily over the first-years. He’s also pulled other students to him like a magnet, or like a planet around which they all orbit. Most of the rest of the house is present, sitting or standing in the common room as Professor Snape walks around the group of first years to stand next to Farley in front of the fireplace. He looks over all of them in turn, his eyes lingering on the faces of each of the first-years, except for Harry. When he comes to Harry, standing near the edge of the group, he looks at him only briefly before turning his eyes away to the next.

“You were Sorted into Slytherin for a reason,” he says. “Being here means that each of you has the cleverness, the resourcefulness, and the ambition necessary to truly make something of yourself in this world, which cannot be said with any certainty of any other House. Over the next seven years, you will work to realize this potential. And it will be work.”

Professor Snape tucked his hands behind his back and continued in his measured tone, “As Miss Davis has suggested, Slytherin House is not well-liked at Hogwarts. Attitudes toward you as Slytherin students will vary from neutrality to mild distaste to active prejudice and fear. This reputation has existed for many generations, and while you are welcome to maintain friendships outside of the House if you are able, you may find it difficult; the perception of us is highly ingrained. And so I warn you now: do not show weakness. As Miss Farley has mentioned, our appearance is highly important, because it is all we have. We cannot be seen to be bothered by the vitriol flung our way. We are above such things. We cannot be seen to be hurt by others’ unfounded opinions. They are irrelevant to us. We cannot be seen to be inconvenienced by the bias against us in this institution and in the world. We are beyond it. We must simply make the most of ourselves, and through our achievements we will earn the respect that others in this world may attempt to deny us.

“Some of you are purebloods, and know it for the advantage that it is. This is common in our house: many of those of pure blood are brought up with values that make you natural candidates for Slytherin. But this advantage is _not_ an advantage within the walls of Hogwarts. Blood is important, but few within these walls have much of a care for it, and more importantly, your first loyalty must be to your House. Keep that in mind as you go forward into this coming year.”

Professor Snape pauses, and Harry takes a deep breath, feeling like he’s been pulled underwater by his words. It’s a lot to digest all at once, but also the way the professor speaks is hypnotic, mesmerizing. What he says… it’s intimidating, but also so promising of a brighter future than Harry has ever imagined for himself.

“Do justice to the values of this House,” Professor Snape says. “Honour them. Honour your fellows. Honour yourself. And write your achievements in the stones of these halls, so that they may never be forgotten—figuratively, lest you earn detention.”

There’s a laugh in the crowd, and while the professor doesn’t smile, there is a pleased gleam in his eye. “You are dismissed,” he says. “To your beds; tomorrow classes begin.”

Released from the spell of Professor Snape’s presence and words, all the students start to move about once more. Many head for the dormitories, but some of the older students linger. Harry glances around, unsure, but Farley comes over and once more ushers their clump forward, this time accompanied by her male counterpart, a bored-looking boy who introduces himself briefly as Terence Higgs before leading the boys to the right corridor, while Farley takes the girls off to the left.

Higgs leads the six boys down the corridor, which is lined with doors. Each door has a series of shiny silver plaques nailed into the dark wood, three or four on each. The doors he leads them to are across the hall from one another, four doors down, and each have three plaques.

“Look for your names,” Higgs instructs, and waits while they do so.

Harry finds his name on the righthand door, between the names of Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini, which makes him sigh with relief. The three of them wave goodnight to Terence and then push inside.

The dorm room has three sets of furniture placed around the room. Each set contains a four-poster bed and a nightstand, and there’s a large wardrobe against one wall presumably to share if any of them have things that need to be hung up. There’s a round table at the centre of the room with three chairs, each with a seat upholstered in the same green as the curtains on the beds. The top cover of the bed is also green, somewhat darker than the emerald of the curtains, and the folded-back sheets are clean and white. There’s another door in the far wall which presumably leads to a loo. Harry’s trunk has been placed at the foot of the first bed on the left, and he goes over to open it get what he needs to get ready for bed, his roommates doing the same without a word.

Once they’re all washed up and changed for the night, Harry does get a strange look from Theodore when he sees what Harry is wearing. It’s one of Dudley’s old shirts, the kind that Harry used to wear all the time, made soft by age and wear.

“Why are you wearing _that_?” Theodore asks, after a moment of looking askance.

Harry shrugs. “I didn’t want to waste my money on buying nightclothes when I already have things that are okay for sleeping.”

Theodore and Blaise exchange a look, and then Theodore bluntly asks, “Didn’t your parents leave you any money?”

“Uh,” says Harry. “Yeah. But it’s got to last me until I can get a job, so I figured I shouldn’t spend it all at once.”

“Is your family poor?”

Harry says, “No,” and then crawls under his covers and turns his back on Theodore. There’s a moment of silence, and then his roommates seem to decide not to question Harry any further. Harry drops off to sleep almost immediately, the quiet sounds of Blaise and Theodore climbing into bed vanishing as he drifts into dreams.

 

* * *

 

The next morning Harry wakes up early; he’s not sure exactly what time it is, because there are no windows in the dorm room and even if there were they’re underground. It’s a bit disorienting for a minute, but his roommates are still asleep so he reckons he hasn’t overslept. And he’s used to waking early at the Dursleys’ in order to make breakfast. He slips silently out of bed and pads into the bathroom to shower and brush his teeth, then comes out and starts getting dressed. As he’s pulling his robe on over his shirt, he hears a mumble and glances over to see Blaise stirring. He waves quietly when the other boy opens his eyes, and Blaise blinks blearily at him.

“Why are you already awake?” Blaise asks, sounding muzzy.

Harry shrugs. “I’m an early riser.”

“Good for you,” Blaise mutters. “See you at breakfast.”

“Mhm,” Harry says, and slips out of the room. There are a few other boys in the hall, all older. One is Higgs, who’s just emerging from what is presumably his own room, further down toward the end of the hallway.

“Good morning, Potter,” Higgs says to him. “Slept well?”

Harry nods. “Good morning, uh…”

“Higgs is fine.”

“Higgs. Sorry.”

The older boy shakes his head. “It’s fine. General rule is, surnames if they’re older or younger than you or in a different house, unless invited otherwise. Mostly you’ll get the same from others, though some of the older Slytherins might decide to be more familiar.”

“Okay,” Harry says. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Higgs leads the way out to the common room, where a few older Slytherins are sitting, waiting for friends to be ready to go to breakfast. Higgs tells Harry he’s welcome to try to find the Great Hall by himself or wait for the rest of the first years to be up and then go to the Hall all together. Harry considers it for a moment, and then sits down on the couch to wait. He’s pretty sure he’ll get lost if he tries to find his way by himself; apparently Higgs thinks the same, because he gives Harry an approving look when he sees him waiting.

The other first years show up pretty quickly. Blaise first, which makes sense because he was already awake. Then Millicent, and then Pansy, then Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle in a clump, and then Daphne and Tracey together, and finally Theodore, who still looks half-asleep. His tie is tied incorrectly, and Higgs makes him fix it before they troop out into the corridor together. It’s still fairly early when they arrive in the Great Hall, with about three quarters of Slytherin House already assembled, and what looks like about the same of Hufflepuff; the Gryffindor table is about two-thirds full, as is Ravenclaw. Harry sits down with his housemates and makes himself a small plate, not sure how much he should take. He’d felt a bit embarrassed eating so much at dinner last night, though he knows it’s probably allowed. After all, there’s more food than they could ever eat. The other kids around him take differing amounts of food, so it’s probably okay. But he errs on the side of caution just to be sure, only taking a few slices of apple, a sausage, and some toast with marmalade. Even that seems luxurious; he can’t imagine he’ll be hungry at lunch, having had so much last night, and now breakfast too.

Not long after Harry’s started eating, he glances up to see Professor Snape has stood from the head table and is walking down along the Slytherin table, handing out sheets of paper, or probably, Harry remembers, parchment, because that’s what wixen write on. When he gets to the first years sitting in their clump near the middle of the long table, he passes each of them an extra sheet, which has a slightly confusing diagram on it that appears to be a map of the school. The classrooms are each indicated with floor and approximate location, as well as suggestions of which staircases they might take, but it’s not very concrete. Harry peers at it uncertainly, but the professor doesn’t say anything to them, just continues along the line.

“Some upper years will be showing you around to your classes in the first week,” Farley says, sitting down on Harry’s right. He jumps; he hadn’t heard her approaching. “I’ll be taking you to your first class—Defence, see?” she says, pointing at a square on the timetable. It, too, is laid out in a somewhat confusing manner, but after squinting at it for a moment Harry can figure out that each day has six class hours in it, but not all of their hours are full. Today is Monday, and they have three morning classes, lunch, two more classes, then the last block free. That seems okay to Harry.

“I don’t have any of my books,” Harry says, patting his mostly-empty satchel. He’d bought it in Diagon Alley along with his school supplies at Professor Sprout’s suggestion. “Do we need to bring them to class?”

“Some classes,” Farley says, serving herself breakfast. “The professors will tell you today; you won’t get in trouble.”

“Okay,” Harry says, and tries to finish his breakfast at the same pace Farley is eating hers, which is fast. He’s impressed that even when she’s made an entire plate vanish in about five minutes flat, she hasn’t made herself look like she has bad table manners. It takes him a few more minutes than her to finish up, even though he was half done already.

Farley waits patiently for five minutes while most of the rest of the Slytherin first years finish up, and then impatiently for five more while Crabbe and Goyle finish their own giant breakfasts, scarfing down the food in a way that’s very messy indeed. Then she waves them all after her as she gets up from the table and heads out the door. On her way, she waves to a pale, ghostly figure who’s drifting into the Hall. He’s a stern, frightening looking man in old nobleman’s clothing which is absolutely covered in dark stains, and he looks down his nose at the first years as they scurry past. Once they’re out of his earshot, Farley explains that he’s the Bloody Baron, real name unknown, the ghost of Slytherin House, and that he ought to be respected and not bothered. That seems reasonable to Harry.

What does not seem reasonable is staircases that move on their own, apparently at random. Farley explains them in terms that seem absurd: this one is temperamental, this one only goes to the fourth floor on Tuesdays and otherwise it’s the third floor (which, she reminds them, is restricted by order of the Headmaster), this one has a vanishing fourth step that you have to remember to jump or else get your leg stuck. Harry tries to commit all this to memory, and just hopes he won’t embarrass himself too many times before it sticks. Fortunately they’re not going up any staircases right at the start of the day. The usual Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, Farley says, is on the third floor, but obviously cannot currently be used. So for the time being Quirrell is using a classroom off of the Transfiguration Courtyard on the ground floor.

“Lucky for you,” Farley says, once they’ve stopped at the door to the Defence classroom. She gestures across the courtyard to a different door. “The Transfiguration classroom is right there, and that’s your next class. Someone will come pick you up from there to take you to History of Magic. Now, I’ve got to get to my own class. Good day!” And with that, she strides away, back toward the castle, and leaves them to step into their first class at Hogwarts on their own.

Harry is excited for Defence Against the Dark Arts; the textbook had had a lot of highly promising things in it. And, indeed, when Professor Quirrell explains what they’ll be covering that year—an introduction to magical creatures and other environmental hazards, with some basic jinxes, hexes, and charms for used in defending themselves against such creatures. Unfortunately, it turns out that Professor Quirrell himself is a bit hopeless. He stutters terribly, making him nearly impossible to understand. Their first class is just a lecture; they’ll only have one practical lesson a week, which seems like it’ll be much more bearable, but they still have to listen to poor nervous Professor Quirrell for two hours a week. He seems knowledgeable, at least. Just very twitchy.

The class which follows Defence is _much_ better. They have what is meant to be a practical Transfiguration lesson with the Hufflepuffs, and Professor McGonagall is brilliant. She turns her desk into a pig and then back as a demonstration in the first five minutes of class, and then tells them that while she does not expect them to succeed, seeing as they have no theory, they may spend the rest of the class hour attempting to turn a matchstick into a needle. Harry doesn’t manage it, but no one else does either. He thinks that by the end of the hour his matchstick has gained a bit of a silvery sheen. Professor McGonagall walks around the class watching each of their efforts with the incantation she’d taught them, occasionally correcting pronunciation, and she gives Harry a faintly approving look when she sees his work. She then assigns approximately a tonne of reading to be done for the next class.

The rest of the first week of classes follows a similar pattern. History is boring, taught by a droning ghost named Professor Binns, but Harry thinks he’ll be able to teach himself well enough from the textbook. At least the ghost seems too far gone to actually assign much work. Charms is as interesting as Transfiguration, taught by the effusive Professor Flitwick, who informs them that they will be learning basic charms for everyday use, some of which wixen-raised children will already be familiar with, such as the Tempus Charm and the most basic form of the Cleaning Charm. Their first practical is to be on Wednesday, and they’ll be learning the Levitation Charm, _Wingardium Leviosa_ , for which they begin studying theory right away. Or, well, right away as soon as Flitwick climbs back onto his pile of books; he’d fallen off with a squeak when he reached Neville Longbottom’s name in the roll on the first day.

Their first flying class is put off until the second week in order to give them time to adjust, as is their first Monday night Astronomy class; the lecture which prepares them for their first night of stargazing is fascinating, and Harry copies down the names of stars and constellations as fast as he possibly can, still fumbling with his quill. His notes for all of his classes so far have been terribly splotchy, and as the week wears on he considers asking one of his wixen-raised peers for help, maybe Blaise, who seems less inclined toward mockery or disdain than any of his other yearmates so far.

Truthfully, most of them aren’t _so_ very terrible. Blaise and Theo (“Ugh,” he’d said when Harry first called him by his full name) keep to themselves in the dorm room. Millicent Bullstrode keeps to herself _all_ the time. The girls mainly ignore Harry en masse. It’s really just Draco Malfoy and his two cronies that Harry has rapidly discovered a distaste for.

Malfoy is smug, rude, and insulting. He takes every chance he get to make snide comments in the common room to whoever’s listening about Harry’s glasses or his messy hair or his inferior muggle family. Harry can’t really argue that his family isn’t inferior because he’d die before defending the Dursleys, especially now he’s seen how good it can be, but he doesn’t much like the insults either. For the time being, he’s resolved to just deal with it silently and hope that he can find some leverage against Malfoy later in the year. At least Crabbe and Goyle are too useless to do much more than nod in agreement, rather than adding to the mocking as Pansy Parkinson sometimes does.

Bereft of real friends in his own House, Harry finds his eyes seeking Hermione across the Great Hall at meals more than once as the week progresses. She seems equally alone, only occasionally speaking to the other Gryffindors. Usually she sits between Neville and one of the girls, who Harry thinks might be Lavender Brown, and while Neville sometimes talks to her, the girl never does. It makes Harry frown, because while he’s sort of figured out by now that the Slytherins play long games with their friendships, he thought Gryffindors were supposed to be… if not more _friendly_ , because that’s a Hufflepuff thing, than at least straightforward. And united. He’s heard more than a little grumbling in the Slytherin common room about the ‘Gryffs’, and has rapidly figured out that no one was much exaggerating when they talked about the state of things between Slytherin and the rest of the school, especially the Gryffindors.

The problem is, Harry’s not sure he cares. And it works out that they have two of their practical lessons with the Gryffindors: first Defence on Wednesday afternoon, and then Potions on Friday morning. The latter is a double block, and by breakfast on Friday Harry isn’t sure he’s looking forward to it or dreading it. He dares to glance up at the head table, but Professor Snape isn’t there. He misses breakfast sometimes. This morning, it’s a relief. Harry has received a few more of those stone-cold glances at meals from the professor, and they’re nerve-wracking. His eyes are black and feel like they could cut like the obsidian arrowhead a primary school teacher had once brought in and showed to Harry’s class, and having him look at you feels not unlike holding that little razored stone had felt, or so Harry thinks. He hasn’t dared ask any of his classmates if they think he’s right that Professor Snape doesn’t like him much, not when they all talk about how much he favours Slytherin House.

Potions, it turns out, proves Harry’s suspicion quite well. The first-year Slytherins have already been given a tour of the dungeons, and so troop down to the Potions classroom without an older guide, the Gryffindors trailing in a more raggedy column at their backs. The door to the classroom is open when they arrive, and they all file in and find seats. The Slytherins move toward the front, the first class in which they have done so. Harry moves with them and chooses a table to the right side of the room, seeing Theo come to join him, but before he gets there Hermione slots herself confidently into the seat next to Harry. She gets a dirty look from Theo for it, but just glares back at him and then turns to smile at Harry.

“Hullo,” he says.

“Good morning,” she replies. “How’s your week been?”

“‘Bout the same as yours,” Harry points out. Most of their classes, at least the lectures, have all four Houses in them. It’s only practicals like Potions that are split up.

Hermione laughs. “I suppose that’s true.”

Before she can say anything else, though, a soft sound at the back of the classroom prompts Harry to look, and he sees Professor Snape appear in the doorway. He pokes Hermione’s arm and she turns too, in time to see him stride down the isle, his robe billowing around him. A flick of his wand closes the door with a bang, causing those students who hadn’t noticed him come in—all Gryffindors—to jump. When he reaches the front of the room, he plucks a scroll from an inner pocket of his robes and begins to take roll, pausing on Longbottom’s name to say, “Neville Longbottom. Our new… _celebrity_.”

Malfoy snickers behind his hand, and Harry tries to roll his eyes subtly, though from the sharpness of the professor’s look when he gets to Harry he reckons he failed. Once roll is taken, Professor Snape puts away his scroll and stares down the room.

Into the dead silence he says, his voice so quiet it’s nearly a whisper, “You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, some of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the simmering cauldron, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even put a stopper in death—if you are not as big a bunch of dunderheads as I am usually forced to teach.”

There’s a laugh from the Slytherins, but it falls quickly back into transfixed silence, the same that Professor Snape had commanded that first night in the Slytherin common room. Like Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape has the ability to command the attention of a classroom without really trying, perhaps to an even greater degree. Harry notes down as much as he can remember of the speech, and then pays attention as Professor Snape begins asking questions of random students around the room. The answers, Harry remembers, are all in the first chapter of the Potions textbook, which he had read the night before in hopes of making a good impression on the professor… but his efforts are doomed to failure, as Professor Snape does not call on him even once. In fact, he seems to be going out of his way to ignore Harry as much as possible, not even looking over at his table. This seems to frustrate Hermione, who throws up her hand to answer every question Professor Snape asks and like Harry is not called on once.

Once he’s gone through half a dozen or so questions, he sets them to working on a potion to cure boils. A flick of his wand causes the recipe to appear on the blackboard, and then the professor sweeps around the room peering over students’ shoulders as they weigh nettles and crush snake fangs. He has criticism to offer every single person except for Malfoy, whom he compliments loudly and awards points for ‘the deft manner in which he has stewed his toads’, and Harry, who he continues to coldly and obviously ignore. The other Slytherins have begun to notice the treatment by now, and Harry ducks his head against the inquisitive looks he gets from his roommates.

Harry is mostly done with his potion when there’s a caustic hiss from a few rows back, and then shouts. Harry whirls around to see Neville’s cauldron melting into acid green slime, spilling out onto the floor around his feet and coating his hands and arms.

“Foolish boy!” Snape shouts, storming across the classroom. “Did you add the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the—it doesn’t matter. You!” He points at a Gryffindor boy standing on a stool whose name Harry isn’t sure of and says, “Take him to the hospital wing!”

The other boy nods quickly and jumps down off his stool to grab Longbottom’s arm. Longbottom whimpers, as his skin has begun to break out into terrible red boils wherever the potion touched him, and then the two of them are headed out of the room.

A wave of Snape’s wand vanishes the mess, and when he turns away from it to see all of the students’ wide eyes, he snaps, “Well? Back to work!”

Harry grits his teeth. Being ignored isn’t so very terrible, he supposes, compared to being shouted at. But if shouting is Snape’s baseline, than the treatment he’s getting must mean that Snape as some sort of other problem with him that he refuses to show, probably so that there are no cracks in Slytherin’s unified facade.

_Fine_ , Harry thinks, getting back to his own potion. Snape can hate him all he wants. It doesn’t matter. But damned if Harry is going to let him have what he wants: Slytherin unity is clearly as thin as paper, and that’s how Harry’s going to treat it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost forgot to post this chapter today even though I've pretty much only lived through this extremely long week because I've been looking forward to the comments, so uh, please validate me?


	4. Making Waves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be my favourite chapter in Book One? I just. I love Harry Potter a lot you guys.

 

The next week brings two new lessons: Astronomy on Monday night, and Flying on Thursday afternoon. Harry isn’t sure how exciting Astronomy is going to be, but it turns out to be as interesting as the lecture was last week, looking up at the dark night sky and sketching star charts. He also finds out that magical telescopes can see through cloud cover, so it doesn’t even matter that it’s kind of overcast that evening. At least it’s not raining, so they can go lie out on the lawn; when the weather is bad they’ll have the luxury of stargazing from the top of the Astronomy Tower, where there’s an observation platform with charms to keep it warm and shielded from the wet.

Flying lessons, on the other hand, create a buzz among all the first year students. On Thursday morning, Malfoy brags loudly all through breakfast and lunch about how he’s been flying since he was eight, and his father is sure to buy him the newest racing broom next year, when he’s old enough to try out for the Slytherin House Quidditch team. Harry isn’t entirely sure what Quidditch is, other than that it’s a sport played on brooms that everyone seems quite passionate about. He’s heard other students discussing teams and positions, but he can’t quite make sense of it and he hasn’t had the chance to get to the library in hopes of finding a book about it. If he can’t do that, he plans to maybe ask Blaise or Theo what the rules are tonight, when they’re tucked away in their dorm and no one who’ll make fun of Harry for not knowing can overhear.

The Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws have already had their flying lesson; theirs happened right after lunch yesterday. All of them showed up to dinner looking thrilled, which has only doubled the anticipation for the Gryffindors and Slytherins. Even having to share the class with their rivals hasn’t dulled the excitement. And so after lunch is finished they all stream out of the Hall in high spirits. The Slytherin first years have a free period before Flying, and Harry ends up sitting out near the Black Lake with Blaise and Theo, working on an assignment for McGonagall and trying not to get too distracted. It’s about a half-futile effort, though Harry does manage to finish his homework. He doesn’t think it’s his best work by any means, but it’s done. And then there are only ten minutes before Flying starts, so the three of them throw their things into their bags and race for the Transfiguration Courtyard, where the lesson will be taking place.

They arrive before the Gryffindors, who are coming from a practical with the Ravenclaws, but as the last of the Slytherins. Greengrass rolls her eyes at them, walking over to join Blaise and Theo and scold Blaise quietly for almost being late, and Malfoy scoffs. Harry tries to ignore him, but he can’t quite ignore the whispering he hears start up when the Gryffindors start to arrive. Specifically, he thinks, when Malfoy and Parkinson see Hermione arrive, walking a little separate from the rest of her House and looking quite pale and nervous. Harry can understand, honestly. He’s not especially looking forward to making a fool of himself on a broom in front of both the Gryffindors _and_ his own Housemates, though at least the latter should have the courtesy to keep their mocking private. He’s still excited, of course; he can’t wait to learn to fly. But if he bungles it, which seems likely, he’ll never live it down.

On the heels of the Gryffindors comes Madame Hooch, who has short grey hair and yellow eyes, like a hawk’s. Her robes are a different style than the usual teachers’ robes, probably better for flying. And floating beside her is a large bundle of brooms, which she distributes with a flick of her wand into two lines laid out on the grass.

“Well?” she says, as they all stare at her. “Choose a broom, quickly now!”

There’s a brief scramble as each first year finds a broom, arranging themselves with Gryffindors in one line and Slytherins in the other. Once they’ve all chosen their broom, Madame Hooch says, “Listen up! I don’t care how many years you’ve been flying. Not one person’s feet leave the ground without my say-so. Now, raise your wand hand over the broom and say ‘Up!’”

Everyone puts out their hand, and almost as one they all shout, “UP!”

Harry’s broom leaps off the ground and smacks into his palm, as eager as a puppy. He grasps the smooth wood happily, and looks around to see that he was one of the few to achieve such success. Both Houses have a few who managed to get their broom to come to them right away, but both Houses also have failures; Blaise’s broom is determinedly earthbound, as is Tracey Davis’s. Neville Longbottom is the only Gryffindor whose broom didn’t move at all, though from what Harry can see of his face he seems a bit relieved about that. Hermione’s broom has rolled toward her slightly, but otherwise stayed where it was. It seems like brooms can sense fear.

“Well done,” says Madame Hooch. “For those of you whose brooms did not come, grasp your confidence and try again; you will get it eventually.”

She comes around to the students who have managed to grasp their brooms on the first try and teaches them how to mount their brooms, showing them the proper place to sit and how to grasp the handle. To Harry’s private delight, it turns out that Malfoy has been grasping his broom incorrectly his entire life, and Madame Hooch sternly informs him that if he keeps on like he had been he’d soon enough have fallen or broken a wrist, “trying some foolhardy maneuver, I’m sure.” All the while, the other students are working on getting their brooms to obey. Tracey is the first to manage hers, and then Longbottom. Hermione, Harry can see, is getting more movement, but she’s also getting frustrated. He wishes he was closer to her so that he could offer some encouragement, but he’s halfway down the line and he has no idea what he’d say.

A ruckus near the end of the line draws Harry’s attention, and he sees that Longbottom’s broom has begun to rise straight up, like a cork shot from a bottle. He looks incredibly shaky, his grip uncertain, and Madame Hooch is shouting, “Get down! Longbottom, stop, get back here!”

“I can’t!” he calls back, still rising. The students below him back away as his broom reaches ten feet, then twelve, then twenty—and then Longbottom loses his grip and slips sideways off his broom. Madame Hooch doesn’t have her wand out in time, and with a _crack_ he lands hard on the ground. Harry looks away toward the Defence classroom, wincing in sympathy, and sees a figure standing in the window; probably Quirrell, his attention caught by the shouting. Hopefully they haven’t interrupted a lesson.

Everyone rushes in to form a crowd around Longbottom, who Harry can hear moaning in pain, so he’s not dead. That’s good, Harry thinks, and drifts a bit closer himself.

“Back up, give him some space!” Madame Hooch orders, and the crowd backs up about five centimetres and then stops. She crouches down next to Longbottom to inspect his arm, and when she touches it he whimpers. “Broken wrist,” she says. “Alright, _back up_! I’m taking him to the hospital wing.”

She stands up, lifting Longbottom in her arms. His face is white and pinched with pain; he looks a little like he’s going to be sick. Something shining, maybe made of glass, falls from his robes, but Weasley leans down and scoops it up right away.

“Feet _on the ground_ until I return,” Madame Hooch warns sternly, and then goes marching toward the castle, still carrying Longbottom as if he weighs nothing, though she’s a fairly slight woman herself.

“The look on his face!” crows Malfoy, the moment she’s out of earshot. “Some ‘saviour’ he is—he can’t even stay on his broom.”

“At least he could _get_ on his broom,” Parkinson says, shooting a nasty look toward Hermione, who’s hanging back a little.

Hermione flushes. Her broom is still lying in its original position on the ground, now some paces behind her.

“Oh, yes,” Malfoy says. He’s turned as if he’s supposed to be speaking to Parkinson, but his voice is loud enough that everyone can hear him. “Sorry excuse for a pureblood he might be, but even _Longbottom_ is magical enough to call a broom to his hand.”

Harry glances over toward Blaise, who’d had as much trouble as Hermione with getting his broom off the ground, but his face is stoic.

“Some people,” Parkinson says, false sympathy making her voice sickly sweet. “Why do they even bother trying to teach _that sort_?”

Malfoy shakes his head theatrically. “Not the foggiest. They really ought to just send all the worthless _mudbloods_ home, rather than keeping the rest of us back to match their tortoise pace…”

Hermione’s face, Harry observes, has flushed even further, and tears have begun to gather in her eyes. She’s clenching and unclenching her fists at her sides, just staring at Malfoy and Parkinson as they taunt her. But she doesn’t say anything. None of the Gryffindors come to her rescue. They just avert their eyes. Some of the Gryffindor girls have started talking among themselves again, as if one of their Housemates isn’t being torn apart right in front of them.

Harry doesn’t know what the word ‘mudblood’ means, but he can guess from the context. And he can guess that it’s nasty. Not so different from any of the poison Malfoy has been spitting in his own direction in the common room for the last week and a half. Blood is all that matters to Malfoy, Harry has figured out. And he’s jealous and mean toward anyone who comes close to proving that blood doesn’t tell—like Hermione.

“She’ll never fit in with the rest of us _real_ wixen,” Parkinson says. The pity in her voice is venomous.

“Shut up,” says Harry, before he can stop himself.

There’s a pause. Malfoy and Parkinson turn toward him, both looking surprised. Harry can see the same surprise in his peripheral vision on the faces of the others, especially the Slytherins.

“What?” says Malfoy.

In for a penny, in for a pound, Harry decides, and he stalks across the grass until he’s nose-to-nose with Malfoy, leans in, and says very slowly, “Shut. Up. Malfoy. And shut Parkinson up too, while you’re at it.”

Malfoy gapes like a dead fish, and then he recoils. “You can’t talk to me like that!”

“I’ll talk to you however I like,” Harry says, trying to mimic Malfoy’s own sneer as he says it. “Lay off Hermione before I make you.”

“Wh—you dare!”

“Yup,” says Harry, and pulls his wand out of his pocket. Malfoy’s face goes even whiter than usual. “What’ll it be?”

“Harry,” says Hermione from behind him. She puts her hand on his shoulder. “Stop. Think of the trouble you’ll be in for fighting—he’s not worth it.”

Harry turns his head just enough to talk to her, though he doesn’t look away from Malfoy, who still looks too stunned to do anything. “He isn’t, but you are.”

He can’t see her face, but her hand falls away from his shoulder.

Malfoy scowls at him. “You’re making a mistake, Potter,” he says.

“I don’t think I am,” Harry replies calmly, but he lowers his wand. “Hermione’s my friend. Leave her alone.”

“Fine,” Malfoy snaps, and he whirls away, storming off across the courtyard to sulk by a pillar. Parkinson follows him, all in a flutter, and Crabbe and Goyle trail after, giving Harry hostile looks as they go.

Harry lets go of a breath and turns to look at the rest of the first years. All of the Gryffindors still have comical shock on their faces. The Slytherins have managed to mask it a little better, but Blaise is a bit wide-eyed, and Greengrass is frowning. Harry shrugs at them, and then looks at Hermione. She’s also looking shocked, but grateful, too, and she puts her hand back on Harry’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” she says quietly. “You’re a good friend, Harry.”

Harry shrugs again. “I try?”

She laughs, though she still sounds a little bit like she’s on the edge of tears, and she gives him a hug. He startles and then awkwardly hugs back, patting her shoulder blade with one hand.

“Uh,” he says.

She lets him go and shakes her head at him fondly. “Boys,” she says, and then goes back over to her abandoned broomstick. She gives it a stern look and says, “Up!” The broom smacks neatly into her palm, and she grins over at Harry. He grins back.

* * *

That evening, Blaise and Theo corner Harry in the dorm before they all get ready for bed.

“What was that today?” Theo demands.

Harry shrugs. “She’s my friend. And you’ve heard what Malfoy’s been saying about me all week.”

“You _know_ we can’t do that sort of thing,” Blaise says. “Us Slytherins have to stick together.”

Harry looks away. He does know. It’s not like he hasn’t heard the whispering, seen the glares from the other students. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw have their differences, but he’s seen students spending time with one another from all three of those Houses. But seeing a Slytherin with a student from another House is much more rare, and usually only the upper year students do it. No first year Slytherins are friends with any other first years. Some of them seem to have… maybe family friends in other Houses? Cordial nods are sometimes exchanged in the halls, but that’s it.

Harry knows his friendship with Hermione is different. But he doesn’t get along with the other Slytherins, really, and she doesn’t get along with the Gryffindors.

“House unity doesn’t have much to it if he’s allowed to say nasty things about me whenever he wants,” Harry says.

“Slytherin’s House unity isn’t for _us_ ,” Theo says. “It’s for _them_. We’ve got to present a united front. You can hate Malfoy all you want, you just have to do it privately.”

“No,” Harry says. He looks back up, meets Theo’s eyes and then Blaise’s. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yes it _does_ ,” Theo insists.

 _No, it doesn’t_. But Harry doesn’t say that. No point. Instead he says, “I came to Hogwarts to get away from bullies. The Hat put me in Slytherin so that I could be what _I_ wanted, not what other people want me to be. So: no. I’m not going to do that.”

Blaise and Theo both stare at him, and then look at each other and have one of their weird silent conversations. They’re not as subtle as some of the older students, not yet, so it mostly consists of pretty obvious furrowed brows, shrugs, and eye rolls.

Finally, Blaise says, “Okay.” He sounds grudging. “I guess we get why you feel like that. But you’ve still got to _try_ , Harry. We’re your Housemates.”

“Yeah,” Harry says. He sighs. “I guess I get why you feel the way you do, too. I know you guys are… sort of friends? With Malfoy?”

Blaise shrugs. “Allies. Or at least we have to pretend to be.”

“My dad and his are friends,” Theo says very quietly. “So I can’t get on his bad side.”

“It’s okay,” Harry says, knowing that what Theo means is that sometimes he’s going to need to take Malfoy’s side over Harry’s if they get into any more fights in public, and probably even fights in private. Everyone in Slytherin talks. Everyone at _Hogwarts_ talks.

“I like you better,” Theo offers. “But… my family is Dark, Harry. And yours is basically Light.”

Harry blinks at him. “You mean like… the Dark and the Light sides during the war?”

“Uh, yeah,” says Theo, like that should be obvious. “But just… magically, too. The Potters have been a Light-leaning Grey family forever. And the Notts have always been Dark.”

“The Zabinis are Grey,” Blaise says. “Don’t you know this?”

Harry shakes his head. “Why would I? Raised by muggles, remember?”

“Oh,” both of them say.

“Right,” says Theo, suddenly awkward. “Well… maybe we should, uh. Explain. A lot of people in Slytherin care about this stuff. It used to just be about magic, but it’s pretty political now.”

“Okay,” Harry says. He doesn’t understand it, but if they say it’s important he believes them. “Can you also explain the rules of Quidditch? Because everyone keeps talking about it and I, um, don’t know.”

Theo snorts, and then breaks out laughing. “That’s a thousand times less important!” he says.

“But we’ll tell you,” Blaise says, grinning. He reaches out and pats Harry’s shoulder, and says, “We can sit on my bed, come on. You have got a _lot_ to learn.”

And he does, Harry discovers. Blaise and Theo teach him the rules of Quidditch first, because that’s the easiest and also the most fun. They pull out quills and parchment and they draw confusing diagrams and explain what all of the different players do and how to win a game. Harry decides that it sounds like a lot of fun; the first Hogwarts game is in the second week of October, and Harry can’t wait to see it—or to learn more about flying himself. They’d only gotten to hover around near the ground during their first flying lesson, letting everyone who was new to it get accustomed, and to let Madame Hooch examine all of them for any potentially dangerous flaws in grip or seated position. By the end of the lesson, Harry had been itching for a broader stretch of open sky, tired of dangling his toes against the grass, but that will have to wait until next week.

The talk of Dark, Light, and Grey families is different. Blaise and Theo pull out fresh parchment, and while Theo explains the basics of the divisions, Blaise sketches out a few sheets’ worth of family trees, just for examples. The Potters, Theo says, were technically a Grey family, since they’d married into Dark lines in the past, but they’d always leaned hard to the Light in their politics.

“Isn’t the Light and Dark thing about magic?” Harry asks.

“Sure,” Blaise says, putting down his quill. “But pretty much no one actually tests their magic for Inclination any more, since it’s only the _really_ high level stuff that actually requires a wix to be specifically one or another. Ritual magic, stuff like that, or at least that’s what my mum says. Plus, magical talents usually tell, and since those pretty much run in bloodlines it’s just as easy to say that your family is one thing or another and not bother worrying about each individual’s magical Inclination.”

“… Oh,” says Harry. “So, most of the Potters were Light?”

Theo shrugs. “Like I said, the Potters were a Grey family. I know your grandfather, Charlus, married Dorea Black, and that family’s as Dark as they come. But I don’t know about your parents.”

“Okay,” Harry says, and makes a mental note to try to find out… and maybe to find out his own magical Inclination. The Slytherins care a lot about family histories, but Harry’s parents are gone. Not dead, maybe, but he’s never even met them, and they’ll never be the ones to look after him. So it’s his own Inclination that’s important. He doesn’t have a real family any more, not one that’ll matter for this sort of thing. “So what about you?”

Theo shrugs. “Like I said, the Notts have always been Dark. But we don’t have any magical talents, so unless I decide to get tested or my father decides to test me, I might never know. And it doesn’t really matter. As far as anyone is concerned, I’m Dark too.”

“I’m definitely Grey,” Blaise says. “I’ve got my mum’s talent.” But when Theo and Harry look askance at him, he doesn’t say anything else, just holds up one of the family trees. It’s labelled ‘Black’. “You’re related to the Black family, Harry,” he says. “And so’s Malfoy.”

He points to a place on the family tree, where ‘Narcissa Black’ is connected to ‘Lucius Malfoy’, and then a few generations above that, ‘Dorea Black’ and ‘Charlus Potter’.

“They’re Dark, you said?” Harry asks. Also on the tree, he sees, is Sirius Black, his godfather. He thinks back again to his parents’ will and sighs.

“Mhm,” Theo says. “And every single one has been sorted Slytherin going back, what, ten generations?”

Blaise nods. “Except Sirius Black. He was a Gryffindor.”

“That’s how he knew my dad,” Harry murmurs.

Blaise and Theo exchange another look. “How’d you know that, and not the rest of this?” Theo asks.

“Gringotts gave me a copy of my parents’ will,” Harry says. “So I know he was supposed to be my guardian.”

“What happened?”

Harry shrugs. He doesn’t want to explain that he doesn’t know, so he tries to make his face say that he doesn’t care. They somehow seem to buy it and change the subject, going back to the Dark/Light divide. Apparently the political situation had gotten really fraught right when the Dark Lord ( _Voldemort_ , Harry thinks, but neither of them say it so he doesn’t either) started his rise to power, and it’s pretty much stayed that way. The Dark families are pretty powerful in the Wizengamot, because a lot of them are old and very wealthy, and a lot of the Grey families lean their way because of old alliances. The Light tends to be more willing to marry muggleborns, Blaise explains, which sometimes causes political problems for them, since it’s hard for muggleborns to get jobs in the Ministry. He says this so matter-of-factly that Harry barely registers it at the time, but at the end of the conversation, once they’ve all gotten ready for bed and put out the light, he lies in his bed and stares at his canopy and thinks about it.

The magical world has a lot of problems, he thinks. The most powerful pureblood families are at least 60% Dark, from what Blaise and Theo say, which means that even though the Dark Lord is gone, the things he believed are still around. The people who were his followers and supporters during the war still have a lot of sway, even in the government, and because of that the Light families who’d fought him have a hard time changing anything.

Harry rolls over, discontent. He’d hoped the magical world would be better than the muggle world, but it’s not. There’s laws about magical creatures instead of racism, and blood purity instead of sexism, and they fought a civil war in Harry’s own lifetime (technically) because of all of that, and nothing’s changed in the ten years since it ended. People still hate each other for stupid reasons. _Really_ stupid reasons, Harry thinks. Like what House a dumb smelly Hat puts you in when you’re eleven. “Ugh,” Harry says to his curtains.

“Shh,” hisses one of his roommates.

Harry sighs. It’s late. He’ll think about it more in the morning, he promises himself, and rolls over again to try to sleep.

* * *

In the end, though, Harry doesn’t have much time to dwell on the Dark/Light divide, because the next morning at breakfast he gets mail. He’s always loved watching the owls fly into the Great Hall in the morning, dropping newspapers and parcels and letters into the waiting hands of students. In two weeks of class, Malfoy has gotten four packages of sweets from his mother, and made it a point to eat all them in as obvious a fashion as possible in front of Harry and to offer to share with literally everyone but him, including some upper years, about half of whom seem amused and the other half seem exasperated. Both of the fifth-year prefects fall into the latter category, and Farley had, when offered a Chocolate Frog by Malfoy, declined but immediately turned to Harry and asked if perhaps he might like it instead. Harry had barely stopped himself from laughing at the sour look on Malfoy’s face and the glint in Farley’s eye.

Harry knows, of course, that Malfoy does this to try to rub in the fact that Harry never gets any mail from home, but frankly Harry isn’t bothered. He has no idea what it would take to drive the Dursleys to sending him mail, and he doesn’t really want to imagine. He much prefers not thinking about them at all, and they seem equally happy to ignore him for as long as he’s out of their house, and sometimes even when he’s in it. So having not one but _two_ owls swoop down in quick succession surprises Harry so much that he fails to catch their deliveries and an envelope and a rolled up note end up falling directly into his eggs. He blinks at his plate for a moment and then plucks the papers out of his breakfast and brushes them off as best he can.

The note he unrolls right away. It had been brought by a school owl, and while Harry can’t say he was _expecting_ it, he’s also not surprised to see the scrap of parchment covered in a few lines of Snape’s spiky, spindly handwriting.

 _Potter,_ it says. _You will come to my office tonight immediately following the end of the dinner hour. I am certain you know what you will be explaining to me._

It’s signed _Professor Severus Snape_ , like Harry wasn’t going to know right away who it was from. He sighs and glances up at the head table, but this is one of those odd mornings where Snape isn’t there. Before moving on to open the letter, which is significantly more mysterious, Harry leans across the table and asks Farley if she wouldn’t mind showing him where Snape’s office is sometime this afternoon; she agrees easily, giving him and his note a curious look, but she doesn’t ask.

“What’s that?” Blaise asks from his spot beside Harry, pointing at the letter.

“Dunno,” Harry says. He shoves a sausage in his mouth before examining the envelope.

It’s a smallish envelope but thick enough to suggest it has more than one sheet of paper in it. The owl that brought it is an elegant black eagle-owl, and the bird has lingered at the table, peering at Harry with one tawny eye. He passes it a sausage too, a bit belated, and it gives him what he images is an approving look before flying off toward the Owlery.

The outside just has his name written on it in bold half-cursive handwriting. The back is closed with a dot of red wax without any sort of seal pressed into it, and Harry cracks the wax and slides out the pages from within.

 _Dear Harry_ , says the letter.

_I’m sorry in advance, I’m an awful letter-writer. But, hello, welcome to the magical world! You’ve just started at Hogwarts, I know, and I thought I’d give you a couple of weeks to settle in before I got in touch out of the blue. Literally, hah, because this letter was delivered by an owl! I’m not sure if your aunt and uncle would have told you about me, but my name is Sirius Black. I was good friends with your dad when we were in school, and we worked together after we graduated as well. Plus I know your mum, of course._

_I’m sure you’re surprised to be hearing from me, and maybe about me. Your aunt told me and Dumbledore when she took you in that she didn’t want any contact from the magical world while she was raising you, and we agreed because she said she’d send you to Hogwarts when the time came. I hope she told you a bit about it—your mum went too, of course, and Petunia’s Lily’s sister, so she’d have known about the place, though I don’t know how much. Lily never talked about her sister much and I never met her myself, so I don’t really know what she knows about the magical world, and what she could have or would have told you. I hope having a muggle upbringing was okay for you, and that you’ve been having a good time getting to know the magical world—your world. It’s a pretty wonderful place, but I know from Lily and other muggleborns I’ve met that the transition can be a lot, so you should feel free to owl me back with any questions you have!_

_If you don’t have any questions, that’s fine too. I just wanted you to know that I’m here. I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t contact you before this—like I said, you aunt asked that she and you be left alone while you were growing up. It was probably not a bad idea; things after the war were… well. I won’t put that on you. I’m just glad you had a home to go to, since I wasn’t really in a place to take care of you at the time._

_I also hope that you’ll write me back. I’ve told Ajax—that’s the owl—to wait for a response, since I don’t know if you’ve an owl of your own. I’d love to get to know you, Prongslet (that’s what I called you when you were a baby; there’s a story there, which maybe you’d like to hear?). I’ve missed you very much since the last time I saw you when you were just a baby, and I’ve thought about you often. Please, if you’re willing, at least write back, even if it’s just to tell me to bugger off. I understand if you’re mad at me for not writing in all this time. But… let me know._

_Anyway. I hope you’re well._

_All my love,_

_Paddy (aka Sirius)_

There’s also a postscript, written in a different hand, tidy and blockish.

 _P.S._ it says. _Hello, Harry. My name’s Remus Lupin. I was also good friends with your dad and with Sirius in school, and I live with him now. You probably don’t remember either of us, since you were so young when we last saw you, but if you do remember anything you’d remember me as Moony, or perhaps Uncle Moony. Sirius said most of what’s important above (and I apologize for him, he really is hopeless at letters), but I wanted to let you know that I’ve often thought of you too, and would also welcome a letter, either along with one to Sirius or separately; whatever you want._

Harry takes a deep breath. Then he has to take another one, because the first one doesn’t work.

“Harry?” says Blaise. He’s trying to look over Harry’s shoulder at the letter surreptitiously and Harry immediately folds the pages back over so that he can’t see.

“It’s fine,” Harry says. “Um. I’ll see you in class.” He shoves the letter into his bag and gets up from the table. He makes his way quickly out of the Great Hall, not really seeing anything that he passes. He misses the concerned looks from Blaise and Theo, and from Farley, and from Hermione over at the Gryffindor table; his mind is spinning. Sirius Black is alive. Sirius Black, his godfather, is _alive_. The man his parents had wanted to look after him if something had happened to them, and something _had_ happened to them, but he hadn’t taken Harry in. _I wasn’t really in a place to take care of you at the time_ , the letter says, and Harry wants to know what that means.

He can’t get his mind off it. He almost blows himself up during Potions, and is only saved by Hermione’s swift intervention; the potion he produces is little better than hopeless sludge, which earns him a dire look from Snape. He ignores it. He ignores everything, including Hermione grabbing his wrist after class and saying, “What’s happened, Harry?”

He just shakes his head. “Just a letter. I need to think about it.” And he shakes her off and wanders away.

Harry doesn’t make it to lunch that day, and it’s a good thing that the Slytherins have no other classes on Fridays, because Harry’s not sure he’d have remembered to go to any of those, either. He spends the rest of the day wandering around the castle, walking past doors of all shapes and sizes, pausing here and there to sit in window sills and stare out at the verdant grounds or the obsidian mirror of the lake. He turns the words of the letter over and over in his head. He pulls the pages out and unfolds them, reads them again, folds them again, so tightly that the creases nearly cut. He worries a corner of the top sheet until it seems likely to tear, and then forces himself to put it away.

Sirius isn’t his guardian. Harry doesn’t know if there’s anything to be done about that now. He decides not to get his hopes up about going to live with Sirius, instead of needing to stay with the Dursleys, since Sirius hadn’t said anything about it in the letter. _I’ve missed you_ doesn’t mean _I want you_. And, Harry thinks, he shouldn’t tell Sirius too much about what the Dursleys are like. He thinks that they gave him a good home, and Harry doesn’t want to upset him or disappoint him by telling him that even in two weeks, in a House that sometimes feels like a battleground, Hogwarts is already a thousand times more Harry’s home than Privet Drive will ever be.

The great bell in the Hogwarts clock tower is what finally wakes Harry from his thoughts, and the six ringing tolls of the bell startle him. His stomach reminds him that it is indeed dinner hour, as well as his having missed lunch. He’s only got an hour to get back to the Great Hall and get dinner, and looking around he realizes he’s become thoroughly lost. He manages to find the central staircase hall where most of the moving staircases are and realizes he’s ended up somewhere on the seventh floor, and is going to have to take a meandering path back down, because the stairs tend to get temperamental in the evenings and there’s no direct route at the moment.

He makes it to the third floor before finding himself at a dead end. All the staircases he has access to currently lead up, unless he manages to make a shortcut through the third floor corridor, which is of course off limits. But, he sees… if he goes through the door in front of him into the corridor, then there’s another door not much further down which opens onto a corner staircase landing that will take him down to the first floor, where the Hall is.

“Damn,” Harry says, and looks at the door. If he goes in there and is caught out of bounds, he’ll be in detention forever, or perhaps they’ll just kick him right out. But if he doesn’t he’ll probably have to walk up and down stairs for another half-hour, and then he might miss dinner entirely and have to go meet Snape on an empty stomach. The part of him that’s learning how to act like a Slytherin tells him to be cautious, but… he’s _hungry_. He’s taken worse risks to get to eat, he decides, and pushes open the door.

The third floor corridor is dusty and dark, with only a few lit wall sconces. This week in their Charms practical, Professor Flitwick had begun teaching them the _Lumos_ charm, and Harry pulls out his wand, whispering the incantation and flicking the tip of his wand. It takes him two tries, the second concentrating fiercely, and then his wand lights with a pale blue light, much dimmer than what Flitwick had shown them in his demonstration but good enough for this corridor. Carefully, Harry steps forward, trying to figure out which door is the right one. The second one on his right, or the third? He tries to measure the distance, but in the darkness it’s hard to tell. _Third_ , he decides, and tries its handle.

It’s locked. “Oh, no,” Harry whispers. “No, come on.” He looks back down the corridor, but he’s fairly sure this is the right door; it’s the right shape, even, small with an arched top. He tries the handle again, thinking about how badly he wants to get through and get down to the Hall before dinner ends… and it clicks open.

“Huh,” Harry says, and pulls open the door.

It’s dark on the other side, and Harry realizes that he’s made a mistake at the same moment as a massive dog lifts its three heads from its gigantic paws and snarls at him. Frantic, Harry backs up back through the door and slams it, and then whirls away and races back down the hall to the second door, which opens at a touch and releases him out onto the staircase landing he’d seen before. Harry puts out his wand as he runs down the stairs, and he doesn’t stop running until he’s reached the Great Hall. He skids to a stop just outside the massive doors of the Hall, tries to calm his breathing and wipe some of the dust from his palm subtly onto the inside of his robes, and then slips in.

Most everyone is still at the table, finishing their dinner, and Harry flops down into a seat next to Blaise and rapidly starts filling a plate.

“Where have you been?” Blaise demands, turning to Harry away from his conversation with Bulstrode.

“Nowhere,” Harry says, and jams a slice of roast beef in his mouth in defiance of being asked any more questions. It works; Blaise turns away in a huff and leaves Harry to bolt down his dinner as quickly as he can. It’s nearly 7 by the time he’s finished and he puts down his cutlery, then looks over to see Farley chatting with another girl in her year. As if sensing his gaze, she looks up and nods at him, then says something to the other girl and gets up.

“I couldn’t find you this afternoon,” she says when she comes over to him. “Do you still need me to show you Professor Snape’s office?”

Harry nods. “Please.”

“Alright, come on.”

She leads Harry out of the Great Hall and down the stairs into the dungeons, and then along a familiar path. They go past the door to the Potions classroom, however, and around a corner. It’s not so very far from the Potions classroom when they stop, and Farley gestures at a moving painting of a snake coiled around a branch. “Here you go,” she says. “Can you find your way back to the common room later?”

Harry considers his still-developing mental map, but he reckons he knows the dungeons pretty well by now, so he nods. “Thanks, Farley,” he says.

She nods and leaves. The snake in the painting turns one of its steel grey eyes to Harry. “He bites, but he’s not venomous,” it advises.

“Thanks,” Harry replies, and the snake recoils a little.

Then it laughs a hissing laugh and it says, “Very interesting. Go on in, Speaker. He told me to expect you.”

The painting swings open, revealing a dark wooden door that matches the frame, on which Harry knocks and then pushes open. It leads to a short passage, which opens into Snape’s office. Though he knows it’s rude, Harry has to stop to stare for a moment at the walls of the office, which are lined with jars all filled with potions ingredients, some preserved in coloured fluid, others simply packed into the glass vessels. Against the right wall there’s a fireplace in which a cozy fire is burning, offsetting the otherwise gloomy atmosphere of the low-lit office.

Snape is sitting behind his desk at the far side of the room working on something, and Harry approaches cautiously. When he stops in front of the desk, Snape says, “I take it you are aware of why you are here.”

Harry barely restrains himself from jumping at the sudden words. “Yes, sir,” he says.

Snape looks up from the paper he’d been writing on. “Well?”

Harry waits. Then he asks, “Well what, sir?”

“What explanation do you have for yourself?” Snape says. “Did you think your actions were _acceptable_?”

Harry shrugs. “No,” he says. “I knew I’d be in trouble.”

“Then _why did you do it_?”

Harry looks at Snape, who looks back, fury clear on his face. “You can’t make me not stand up for myself,” Harry says. “I’ve a right to defend myself and my friends.”

“Not by assaulting your Housemates!”

“I didn’t!” Harry says. “I didn’t assault anyone. I just told Malfoy and Parkinson to step off.”

“That is not what Mr. Malfoy told me,” Snape says. “He told me you threatened him.”

“Malfoy is a tattletale and a bully,” Harry says bluntly. “I didn’t touch him. And it’s not like I could have hurt him even if I wanted to; even though I pulled my wand, I’d have been better off if I hadn’t. I don’t know any hexes or anything yet. If he were smarter he’d have thought of that.”

Snape scowls, an ugly, menacing expression that reminds Harry a little of Uncle Vernon. “You… you insolent brat. Was I not clear on the first night when I explained what Slytherin House unity _means_? It means you can and will put up with whatever insults Mr. Malfoy decides to hurl in the direction of your Gryffindor friends, and if you have an issue with him, you will take it up in private.”

“Blaise and Theo explained it,” Harry says, shrugging again. “I know why it’s important. But it’s not as important to me as Malfoy not saying nasty things about my friend and about my mum, and people like them.”

“Your—” Snape stops and takes a breath. “You will have detention with me every night next week; report here after dinner as you did today and expect to spend an hour. You will not let your schoolwork slip. You will not tell a soul outside of Slytherin House about it. And should you disagree with Mr. Malfoy again, which I trust will _not_ happen, it will happen it private. Am I understood?”

Harry nods and smiles his fakest smile and meets Snape’s eyes so that the professor knows just how much he doesn’t mean it when he says, “Understood, sir. I won’t argue with Malfoy any more. May I go back to the common room now?”

Snape grits his teeth, but he doesn’t call Harry out on lying. This time, anyway; Harry has no illusions it’ll last. When Snape dismisses him, Harry makes a beeline for the common room, already set on spending as little time in the company of Professor Snape as he possibly can. Hopefully he won’t decide that he and Harry need to have any further _talks_ during Harry’s detentions next week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR WEEKS TO ADD SIRIUS BLACK RELATED TAGS AND I FINALLY CAN, I'M VERY EXCITED ABOUT IT.
> 
> Also, eyy, worldbuilding stuff in this chapter! It's not very detailed because they're kids, but trust me, I have... so many notes. Feel free to ask any questions you have about the magic system I'm fleshing out and how it relates to the politics, because I have thought about this WAY too much.


	5. Halloween

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly early update to make up for the fact that this chapter's sort of short -- it just didn't feel right to shuffle the Halloween Incident in with anything else, though! I like this chapter a lot as-is.
> 
> Also, I finished another chapter of Year Two this week! Cheer for me :D or better yet, leave me a comment when you're done reading the chapter to say "congrats!"

> _September 12, 1991_
> 
>  
> 
> _Dear Sirius and Remus,_
> 
> _Hi. Thanks for writing to me. Aunt Petunia didn’t tell me about you, but I read about you (just Sirius, actually, sorry) in some books when I was trying to learn more about magical history over the summer, before I started at Hogwarts. Professor Sprout came to my aunt and uncle’s house to introduce me to being a wizard, and she told me a little about my parents. I wanted to ask her about you, but I thought you might be dead, since the books said you fought in the war and then didn’t say what happened to you after, and it seemed like a lot of people died. I guess I didn’t want her to tell me that you were definitely dead._
> 
> _Don’t worry about writing bad letters. I’ve never written a letter before, so mine are probably going to be bad too. But I’d like to write to you, if that’s okay. Aunt Petunia didn’t tell me very much about my parents or about the magical world, so it would be nice to have someone to ask. If you don’t mind, anyway._
> 
> _By the way, it’s okay that you didn’t write to me before. When I was growing up and after I found out that I’d be going to Hogwarts, it seemed like Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were pretty scared of the magical world, so it’s probably for the best. And I’m sure you had a lot of other things to worry about._
> 
> _Anyway, I’m at Hogwarts now. I was sorted into Slytherin. I’m not too sure about my Housemates just yet, though some of them are okay, but I’m friends with a girl in Gryffindor, Hermione Granger. And my classes are very interesting, so far, so that’s okay. I’m not sure what else you’d like to know._
> 
> _Harry_
> 
>  

_—_

 

> _September 15, 1991_
> 
>  
> 
> _Dear Harry,_
> 
> _It’s so good to hear from you! I’m glad you’re okay with my writing to you._
> 
> _It’s a shame that your aunt didn’t tell you more about the magical world or about your parents, but I can definitely provide! I was friends with James starting from when we met on the Hogwarts Express in first year, so I’ve got plenty of stories. We made friends with Remus in second year, so he’s got plenty too. He said he’d mail you separately._
> 
> _It’s interesting to hear that you were Sorted Slytherin. Both your parents were in Gryffindor, you know, with me and Remus, so I’ll admit I’m surprised, but it’s totally alright! What’s the common room like? We managed to sneak into Hufflepuff_ _and_ _Ravenclaw while we were there, but no Gryffindor’s got into the Slytherin common room in a hundred years or something like that. We always wanted to though. You see, we were pranksters a bit while we were at Hogwarts—called ourselves the Marauders, all with secret nicknames so that we could sign our work and still have some plausible deniability. Not that anyone didn’t know it was us, but we could always_ _say_ _it wasn’t, you see. I was Padfoot, on account of… well, a secret, which I’ll show you when we meet. (Hopefully you’ll be open to meeting some time soon? Perhaps over Christmas? I can owl Dumbledore about letting you come stay with us for the break if you’re interested.) Your dad was Prongs. And we called Remus Moony. It was all a bit of mad fun._
> 
> _One time me and your dad hared off on our own to try to set up a prank in the Prefects’ Bathroom (if you get in good enough, you’ll see it yourself eventually), where the next person to take a bath there would end up filling the whole room with bubbles that they couldn’t pop and would expand all out into the hallway, and hopefully send them into the corridor in their skivvies, for a laugh. Only, we mistimed the charm and set it off ourselves, and spent a day all covered in suds we couldn’t get rid of. Taught us to try doing anything without Remus to help with the details—he was always the careful one of all of us._
> 
> _I didn’t know your mum as well as your dad, since the two of them didn’t get together properly until sixth year and until fifth year she didn’t much like to hang out with us; she called your dad an “arrogant toerag” all the time, which I thought was a laugh. A real spitfire, Lily Evans. And sharp as a tack, very good in Charms and Potions; all the teachers loved her. Not a mischief-maker like the rest of us. Your dad chose well. Anyway, you’ve got her green eyes, Harry, you did even as a baby. And it sounds like you’ve got her kind heart and keen mind, too._
> 
> _Merlin, I can’t wait to get to know you better, Harry. You’re right that there were other things on the go right after your parents were attacked, and I don’t think I’d have been a very good guardian for you, but I do wish I could’ve been in your life. I hope you know that, and that I loved you when you were a baby and still love you now. You seem like you’ve grown up to be an amazing kid. Hah, I’m terrible at this emotional stuff. I’ll save it up and just give you the biggest hug when I see you, how’s that sound?_
> 
> _Yours,_
> 
> _Sirius_
> 
> _p.s. You should feel free to call me Padfoot, if you like! Or Sirius is fine._
> 
> [Attached is a small cartoon doodle of a dog done in black ink.]

* * *

September turns into October. Flying lessons continue for the Gryffindors and Slytherins, and Harry discovers that he’s something of a natural on a broom, to the pleasure of Madame Hooch and the envy of the others students in his year, particularly Malfoy. In the second week of October, Harry lets Theo and Bulstrode (a surprise; she’s never spoken a word to Harry, but apparently she loves Quidditch and was willing to join Theo in the quest to convert Harry) drag him out to the Quidditch pitch to watch the Slytherin team practice. Quidditch, it turns out, is _amazing_. Harry can’t take his eyes off the players, swooping about high in the sky, and the small dots of the balls. The shining gold of the practice Snitch that the Seeker is working with snags him in particular, and he keeps getting distracted by its darting light. Theo notices, Harry thinks, and on their way back to the school he tells Harry that he should try out for Seeker next year. Harry nods and says he’ll think about it. Playing on the team might be a good way to win some friends in Slytherin; Quidditch players are popular.

Harry doesn’t get into any more public fights with Malfoy (or he hasn’t yet), but their disagreements in the common room are loud and clear to all the other members of Slytherin House. Slowly the other first years drift away from Harry, which is frustrating, but he understands. Blaise and Theo still talk to him in their dorm room and will sometimes hang out with him to do homework, but the only person willing to sit near him at meals is Bulstrode, who doesn’t talk to anyone anyway and doesn’t seem to care in the least about the politics that flow under the surface in Slytherin. Greengrass and Davis never really talked to Harry, but now they won’t even look at him directly, and if Blaise and Theo are with them he gets the same cold shoulder from them. And, of course, Malfoy and Parkinson continue to throw taunts, backed up by the silent hulking figures of Crabbe and Goyle. Because Harry has no plans to inspire anyone at Hogwarts to reinvent Harry Hunting, he doesn’t argue with Malfoy at all when Crabbe and Goyle are there. When he’s on his own, which is rare, Harry will return his insults in kind, sometimes so sarcastic in his responses that Malfoy will look confused for a moment. That’s always satisfying.

For lack of anyone else to study with, Harry spends his free periods outside of the Slytherin common room, hanging out with Hermione. She’s as much of an exile from Gryffindor as he is from Slytherin, and both of them seem more invested than most of their classmates in their education, maybe because everything about magic is so new. Studying with Hermione has the added benefit of boosting Harry’s marks, because, as he comes to realize, she’s not just a swot—she’s properly brilliant. There’s not a single subject that gives her trouble except for Flying, but Harry is pretty sure that’s because she just really likes to keep her feet firmly on the ground. And even beyond native intelligence, she’s got great study habits and knows how to organize her time really well; because Harry’s trying to keep up with her, he sort of absorbs that.

At one point, Harry admits offhand that he’d never really tried hard in school before coming to Hogwarts. Hermione looks at him like he’s just told her he’s an alien.

He shrugs. “The Dursleys would get really mad if I did better than Dudley in school,” he says. “And Dudley wasn’t so smart. So I didn’t try, though I always read everything assigned. I learned enough, I guess.”

“Harry, that’s…” Hermione trails off, seeming not to know what to say, and shakes her head. “That’s really not good. Did you ever… tell anyone that the Dursleys were like that?”

“They weren’t so bad,” Harry says, and looks back down at his Astronomy homework, ignoring Hermione’s piercing look. She’s smart, he thinks. Maybe too smart. He’s already treading carefully about the Dursleys in his letters to Sirius and around the Slytherins; he’ll just have to remember to extend that to Hermione too. And probably everyone else. No point in anyone getting upset over nothing, after all.

He does tell Hermione, very quietly, about the giant dog he’d seen. After she’d finished with being outraged about his rule-breaking and the danger he’d put himself in (“Harry, you could have been killed by that thing! Or worse— _expelled_ when you got caught!”), she’d indulged in a few minutes’ speculation about why on earth the Headmaster would keep something like that in the school. A search in the library turned up a book called _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ by Newt Scamander, which identified the dog as a Cerberus and a highly deadly creature. Not at all something that should be kept in a school, Hermione whispered, Harry nodding his agreement. But neither of them really knows what to do about it. Certainly they can’t tell anyone else, because then Harry really _will_ be in trouble for stepping outside of bounds.

Oh Halloween morning, Harry wakes to the smell of pumpkin spice seeping into the Slytherin common room and wafting along the halls of the dungeons. It’s hard to believe that he’s already been at Hogwarts two months, and yet at the same time he feels like he’s been there forever, so dearly he already loves the place and its shifting staircases and trick doors and mysterious corridors that wrap around on themselves. The ghosts and the creaky armour and the gossiping portraits—it all feels like home. He never wants to leave.

The first years have a full morning of lectures, and right after lunch the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs have a free block while the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws have their Charms practical. On the way out from lunch, Harry drops by the Gryffindor table and tells Hermione to have fun in Charms, and just winks when she asks him why suspiciously. He doesn’t want to spoil the surprise; yesterday, when the Slytherins had had their own practical lesson for this week, Professor Flitwick had let them start working on the Levitation Charm, _Wingardium Leviosa_. Harry hadn’t quite managed it himself, but he’d gotten the feather to twitch, earning Slytherin two points from Flitwick. He can’t wait to hear how Hermione had done when they se each other in that afternoon’s Flying lesson.

But Hermione doesn’t show up to Flying. Harry looks for her worriedly, but she’s nowhere to be seen and none of the Gryffindors seem much bothered by her absence. As he heads back down to the dungeons to change into a clean robe before the Halloween Feast, Harry wonders who he might ask about where Hermione had gotten off to, but realizes that aside from himself, no one else might know—no one else much cares about what happened to either of them, after all, except for each other.

He changes as quickly as he can, and happens to leave the common room just on the heels of Greengrass, Davis, and Parkinson.

“—crying all afternoon in the first floor girls’ toilets!” Parkinson is crowing as he steps up quietly behind them.

“What did he even _say_ to her?” Davis asks.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Parkinson says. “Does it matter? I’m sure she deserved it.”

“Weasley’s a berk,” Greengrass says dismissively. “And too stupid to come up with any original insults. You’d think she’d have thicker skin, anyway, given what she’s put up with from _you_ , Pansy.”

“Well,” says Parkinson. “That’s her own fault for being weak, isn’t it?”

“Who’re you talking about?” Harry asks, his tone as mild as milk. He knows exactly who they’re talking about, and is already thinking dire things about Ronald Weasley. That doesn’t make it less satisfying when all three girls jump.

“No one!” Parkinson squeaks. Then she clears her throat, and says in a more level tone, “None of your business, Potter.”

“Mhm,” Harry says. “Alright. Well, see you at the feast.”

He brushes past them, ignoring the whispers that start up behind him. He’s tempted to go straight to the girls’ bathroom, but he knows what Parkinson and the rest will say if he doesn’t show up to the feast; he promises himself he’ll go straight after, and he’ll bring a napkin with some food for Hermione. If she’s been gone all afternoon already, she’s sure to miss the feast, too.

To the credit of whoever’s job it is to decorate the Great Hall, the grandeur of its Halloween appearance is enough to distract Harry briefly from his worry for Hermione. There are bats, seemingly hundreds of them, swooping about in the rafters and between floating jack’o’lanterns, making the candles in the grinning pumpkins flicker in the breeze as they pass. The whole atmosphere of the Hall is dim and delightful, and Harry doesn’t even feel like he should be wearing a costume because he’s wearing _robes_ , and so is everyone else, and the whole place is just so magical. It’s everything he’d wanted growing up, shut up in his cupboard on Halloween and listening to Aunt Petunia give out candy to the neighbourhood kids, trying to imagine what they might be dressed up as based on her occasional commentary. A fairy, a ghost, a superhero, a wizard… And now he’s here. A _real wizard_.

“Amazing,” Harry whispers to himself, going over to snag his solitary seat at the Slytherin table, a little removed from the rest of the first years. To his surprise, Farley sits down right next to him, and smiles at him.

“Alright there, Potter?” she asks. “You’re looking a little wide-eyed.”

“Oh,” Harry says. “Yes, I’m fine. Thank you, Farley.”

“Alright,” she says. Then she leans down and says, very quietly, “Your friend is crying in the girls’ toilets, if you didn’t already know. Rumour is Weasley said something nasty to her.”

Harry glances at her, surprised. “I heard,” he whispers back. “Thanks, though. I’ll return the favour sometime.”

She sits up again and shakes her head. “No need, little firstie. This one’s free.”

“Thank you,” he says again, for lack of anything better, and flushes a little when she winks at him and then turns to chat with Miles Bletchley, the third year Keeper on the Slytherin Quidditch team.

Harry looks down at his plate, a little unsure of what had just happened, but before he can quite process it the feast appears on golden platters, just as it had on the first night. The spread is as incredible as it had been for the Welcoming Feast, though this time it also includes an array of magical sweets and just about everything imaginable made of pumpkin, including several massive pumpkin pies. Harry is just reaching for a jacket potato when all of a sudden the massive doors of the Great Hall swing open and Professor Quirrell comes sprinting in. His turban looks like it’s been halfway knocked off his head, his robes are rumpled from haste, and his face is white with terror.

He runs all the way to the head table, stops just in front of Professor Dumbledore, and into the shocked silence of the Hall he gasps, “Troll—in the dungeons—thought you ought to know.” And then he faints dead away.

There’s a moment of silence, and then everyone begins talking at once. It takes Dumbledore shooting crackling fireworks from the tip of his wand to restore order, and he orders, “Prefects, gather your Houses and return to your common rooms at once.”

“Doesn’t he realize our common room is _in_ the dungeons?” Farley mutters from next to Harry, but she immediately waves a hand and calls, “First years, to me! Come on!”

Harry looks at her, and then over at the Gryffindor table. Hermione is still missing. And she doesn’t know about the troll. He makes eye contact with Farley, who seems to have realized as well, and when she nods minutely he slips past her and into the milling crowd of students trying to get organized and make an exodus from the Hall.

He makes his way to the door of the Hall, and when the first year Gryffindors troop past, following Percy Weasley who is still calling for them to follow him in an officious voice, he reaches out and snags the arm of Ronald Weasley.

“Oi!” says Weasley, but Harry drags him away and into a side corridor before he can say anything else. Once he gets there, Harry realizes that Weasley had grabbed Longbottom and dragged him along too.

“Whatever,” Harry says. “Alright, Weasley, you’re coming with me.”

“Gerroff!” Weasley shouts, and shakes his arm free. “What’re you playing at, Potter?”

“Hermione doesn’t know about the troll,” Harry says, venomous. He glares at both Gryffindor boys, knowing that if Weasley had been saying nasty things about Hermione, it was probably Longbottom he’d been saying them too; the two were inseparable.

“So what?” Weasley says. Longbottom just looks uncomfortable.

“ _So,”_ Harry says, “she’s been hiding all day because of what _you_ said to her. And if she gets hurt it’ll be _your fault_. Got it?”

Weasley and Longbottom share a look. After a moment, Longbottom says, his voice quiet, “That’s fair, Ron. Even if we get in trouble, well… it is our fault she’s run off in the first place.”

Weasley sighs. “Fine. But you’d better go back, Neville. S’probably not safe, and it’s not _your_ fault.”

“It’ll be safer if there’s more of us,” Longbottom says, and there’s a gentle sort of iron in his voice that Harry has never noticed in the round-faced boy before. He’s pretty shy, from what Harry has observed, keeps to himself and really only hangs out with Weasley, though he’ll passively accept the stares and attention he gets from the other students and even the teachers for being the Boy-Who-Lived. It’s a surprise to find a backbone under all that. Then again, he was the Saviour of the Magical World. The Vanquisher of the Dark Lord. There always had to be more to him, Harry supposes, even if it was well-hidden.

“Alright,” Weasley says, and looks back at Harry. “D’you know where she is?”

Harry nods. “Come on.”

He leads them out of the side corridor, looking out quickly first to make sure that they’re not about to be caught. The crowd has passed, however, and they’re able to slip out into the hall and then make their way down it, their wands out and listening, just in case. Quirrell had said the troll was in the dungeons, but that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have wandered upstairs—which is the whole point of going to find Hermione, Harry reminds himself.

Once, as they’re about to round a corner, they hear swift footsteps, and Harry stops just in time. He peers around the corner carefully to see not a troll, but Snape striding past, moving toward the staircase hall. _Hm_ , Harry thinks, but files it away to worry about later.

A moment after Snape is gone, Weasley whispers, “Where was he skulking off to?”

“Does it matter?” Harry says. “We’ve got to find Hermione; you can be suspicious of my Head of House all you want later.”

“Fine,” Weasley says, and then he sniffs and says, “Do you smell something?”

Harry sniffs too, and yes, he does: a disgusting smell, like mucky pond water and rotten eggs. Then they hear a low grunt echoing down the hall, and the shuffling of heavy, lumbering footsteps, as well as the sound of something being dragged along the stone floors.

Weasley points to the end of the passage opposite where Snape had gone, and in the torchlight Harry can see the shadow of a massive creature with a hunched back and long swinging arms, stomping down the hall. It’s coming toward them, and all three boys shrink back into the shadows, holding their breaths against being heard and against the troll’s stench.

It comes into the light in front of them, revealing itself to be an absolutely hideous creature. At least twelve feet tall, with grey skin like rough stone and stumpy legs. It’s carrying a massive wooden club that’s creating the dragging sound Harry had heard, because its arms are too long for its body. The smell makes Harry’s eyes water, even holding his breath.

It pauses just down the corridor from them and looks into an open doorway, seeming to consider something. Its eyes, Harry had seen, were beady and unintelligent, but eventually it makes up its tiny mind and slouches into the room.

“What do we do?” Longbottom whispers.

“Let’s lock it in,” Weasley suggests, and they come out of their hiding place to see that indeed, the door can be closed from the outside; when they get closer they realize that the key is still in the lock.

“You do it,” Weasley says to Harry, who has somehow ended up at the front of the group.

“You’re the Gryffindor,” he replies, and shoves Weasley forward.

“Wh—fine,” Weasley says, and turns to the door. He’s just about to swing it shut when suddenly, from inside, there’s a high, terrified scream.

The boys have just a moment to share a panicked glance before Harry shouts, “Hermione!” and charges into the room. The room which is the girls’ toilets, he realizes, almost too late.

Weasley and Longbottom are right on Harry’s heels, but he’s still the first to spot Hermione, cowering against the far wall , trying to hide under a sink. As the troll advances on her, its club is knocking the other sinks off the wall; she has no protection.

“Confuse it!” Harry shouts, and he picks up a broken tap off the ground and flings it toward the troll. It glances off the wall, but the troll turns toward the noise, looking confused.

Weasley and Longbottom both dart across the room to separate spots, and Weasley picks up a piece of splintered wood from a stall that the troll seems to have smashed and throws it, shouting “Oy, pea-brain!” The wood bounces off of the troll’s shoulder and it seems not to notice that at all, but all its attention is drawn to the sound of Weasley’s voice, and it starts in his direction.

Longbottom starts shouting too, and Harry takes the opportunity to dash to Hermione’s side. “Come on, run!” he says to her, trying to drag her up off the ground, but she’s frozen in terror, staring at the troll.

“Help!” shouts Longbottom from behind Harry, and he whirls around to see the troll advancing toward Weasley, who’s trapped in a corner with nowhere to go. Longbottom is still throwing debris, but the troll is ignoring him.

There’s no time to think; Harry runs and leaps onto the troll’s back, fastening his arms around its neck. His wand, still in his hand, gets jammed into the troll’s nose, and it howls in pain and thrashes, trying to throw Harry off.

“Do something!” Harry cries, clinging on for dear life. If he lets go, the troll will smash him for sure, and as it is it’s flailing about with its club. Its aim might be terrible, but Harry is sure it’ll get him sooner rather than later.

“Oh no,” he hears Longbottom say, and then Weasley says, “ _Wingardium Leviosa!_ ”

The next moment, the troll’s club leaves its hand, floating unsteadily up into the air. The troll, confused by this turn of events, pauses to look at its weapon… just in time for Weasley to lose control of his spell and let the club drop right onto the troll’s head. It impacts with a dull _thunk_ , and then the troll staggers. Harry’s grip slips, and he falls from its back, landing in a heap on the floor. He stumbles up to his feet, but the troll is tottering, about to fall directly onto him—and then from nowhere, Longbottom comes barrelling into his side, and the both of them tumble clear just in time for the troll to collapse onto its back, insensate.

Weasley is standing there with his wand in his hand, staring at his handiwork, and Harry extracts himself from the pile he and Longbottom had made enough to look between the boy and the troll, his eyes wide.

Finally, Hermione says in a very small voice, “Is it… dead?”

“Dunno,” Weasley says.

Harry walks gingerly over toward the troll’s head and yanks his wand from its nose, none too gently. The troll gives a grunt. “Don’t think so,” Harry says, and wipes the snot off his wand onto the troll’s trousers before stashing it back in his pocket. “Just knocked out.”

Just then, a slamming sound draws all of their eyes to the door. Of course, Harry thinks: they’d been making all sorts of racket. Surely someone had heard and now is here to find out what had caused the crashing and roaring. Sure enough, Professor McGonagall is the first through the door, followed shortly after by Snape and Quirrell. Harry’s never seen anything like the expression on McGonagall’s face; she’s utterly white with fury and fear.

“What on earth is going on in here?” she demands, as Snape goes over to look at the troll. Quirrell, upon seeing it, whimpers and sits down on a cracked toilet. “What were you all thinking? You could have been killed!”

Harry glances at Weasley and Longbottom, who glance at each other. Weasley’s still holding his wand up. Harry tries to communicate with his eyes that he’ll kill them if they throw him under the bus for this, but Longbottom just looks frightened, and Weasley stunned.

Hermione says, “I’m sorry, Professor McGonagall. They were looking for me.”

McGonagall turns to her, as does Harry. Hermione has managed to pull herself up off the floor and comes to stand next to Harry, the shock still lingering in her expression but her shoulder set.

“I thought I could face it myself,” she says, “because, well, I’ve read all about them, you see.”

Weasley drops his wand. If Harry were holding his, he’d have dropped it too.

Meanwhile, Hermione continues. “Harry’s my friend and probably thought to come looking for me. He must have brought Neville and Ron to help. And, well, if they hadn’t found me I’d be dead by now. It had almost got me when they arrived; they didn’t have time to find anyone else.”

Snape looks up from the troll to give Harry a severe look. Harry meets it unwavering, unwilling to back down. He’ll keep quiet about other things; not about looking after Hermione. If Snape hasn’t sorted that out by now, he’s more stupid than Harry thinks.

“Well!” says McGonagall. “Five points from Gryffindor, Miss Granger, for endangering yourself so recklessly. I’m very disappointed in you. Now, take yourself to Gryffindor Tower, unless you’re injured, in which case to the Hospital Wing.”

Hermione nods, her head hanging low, and heads out the door. Once she’s gone, McGonagall turns to the boys. “As for you,” she says, “Take five points each—to Slytherin, of course, for Mr. Potter, and to Gryffindor for you two—for your bravery in defence of your friend. It goes to show, I suppose, that one needn’t be in the House of the Lion to be lion-hearted, and one needn’t be any great master of magic to face down a mighty foe!”

“Thank you, Professor,” Longbottom says quietly, and then he tugs Weasley’s arm and leads him out of the room, sparing a backward glance for Harry as he does so. “G’night, Harry,” he says, just as he goes out the door.

“Good night,” Harry replies, a moment too late. _Huh_.

“As the dungeons are now clear,” Snape says, “you too will be returning to your common room, Potter.”

Harry glances at him, then nods. “Yes, sir,” he says. “What should I say to my Housemates?”

“I’m quite sure you’ll say whatever you please,” Snape replies, his voice turned to silk and acid.

Harry gives him a tight smile. “Okay, sir. Thank you.” And then he scurries out before Snape can bite his head off, as he surely wants to. Just as he goes out the door, he hears McGonagall start to say, “Severus—“,but he’s quickly out of earshot.

To his surprise, he reaches the common room to find that the feast has been transported. It seems like most of the House has taken their meals and retreated to their dormitories, but there are still plenty of people in the common room eating and talking, and Harry draws dozens of eyes when he steps in. He ducks his head and hurries over to fetch a plate, suddenly starving, but before he can take his food and escape to his dorm Farley appears in front of him.

“Did you find her?” she asks quietly, drawing him to the side. Her expression is stern and chastising, not matching her words or tone, and Harry realizes she’s playacting—making the others think she’s scolding him for sneaking off.

So he plays along, stares down at the food in his hands and says, “Yes, and she’s okay. Thanks, Farley.”

“Better make it Gemma,” she sighs, and swats the side of his head lightly. Harry flinches hard, reflexive, and there’s a moment of considering silence before she says, “Early to bed for you after all that excitement. I’d better not hear tell of midnight ghost stories in your dorm, alright?”

“Alright,” Harry says, and slips past her.

Blaise and Theo are waiting for him too, their planned ambush much less subtle. They’re both sitting on Harry’s bed when he gets into the dorm room, and both give him expectant looks.

“What?” Harry asks, trying to sound as innocent as possible.

“Where’ve you been?” Theo says.

Harry smiles. “Oh, sorry. Had to fight the troll. S’all settled now.”

And then, no matter how many questions they ask, he refuses to say anything more about it.


	6. Christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Super Long Update! The Christmas chapter, just in time for Hanukkah, lmao. (Happy Hanukkah to any/all fellow Jews among my readers!)
> 
> There's a content warning for hospitalization attached to this chapter, which I've detailed at the bottom for those who want to skip over the relevant section and/or need a little more info before deciding if you can deal with it.
> 
> Otherwise, enjoy!

November arrives cold and windy. Except for the Quidditch players, who are out practicing rain or shine (especially the Gryffindors, whose captain, Harry has observed, is a complete nut for Quidditch), the students are driven indoors, huddled up in cloaks between classes and hiding in the library from the cold drafts that seep through the cracks in Hogwarts’ ancient stones. The dungeons, other than the Slytherin common room with its constantly crackling fire, become uncomfortably icy, leading the Slytherins to hurry through the halls to and from their common room and to spend most of their time in the library.

This is just fine for Harry, who after the incident with the troll begins spending more time than ever with Hermione… and with Longbottom and Weasley, who have apparently decided that they’re Hermione’s friends. The first time Harry meets Hermione in a shared free block and finds her with the two Gryffindor boys, he almost balks, but Hermione welcomes him as ever. Longbottom proves not to be at all hostile to Harry despite his being a Slytherin, inviting him immediately to call him by his first name, and when he learns that Harry has been doing alright in Potions he begs his help. In return, Harry starts listening to Neville’s advice about how to manage some of the plants in Herbology and discovers that all his tips are very useful. The Gryffindors and Slytherins don’t have Herbology together, unfortunately, or Harry would insist on pairing up with Neville. As it is, Harry’s increasing competence thanks to Neville’s help earns him several warm, approving looks from Professor Sprout, which always puts him in a good mood. Neville is much more soft-spoken than the average Gryffindor, but he’s also very kind, always offering Harry a smile to match Hermione’s.

Weasley is a different story. He can’t seem to resist glaring whenever Harry shows up, despite Hermione’s scolding, and will occasionally mutter something about “sneaky Slytherins”. It’s as if he’s under the impression that Harry is going to steal Hermione and Neville, as though Hermione wasn’t Harry’s friend first, and anyway, Harry would much prefer that they all just get along. It’s not like he has any other friends, after all, and the three of them are all in the same House and clearly have been spending time together at meals and in their common room as well; Hermione and Neville might have welcomed Harry into their group, but ultimately he’s the outsider among the three of them. He forces himself to be okay with that, and really, it _is_ okay. They spend all their shared free periods together in the study halls or in the library, where there are fireplaces or warming charms to ward off the chill of the corridors, and Harry usually sits next to Hermione in the classes that they share, now often with Neville or Weasley on his other side. He’s earning more dirty looks than ever from Malfoy and his gang, and wary ones from all the rest of the Slytherins, but it’s fine.

Harry’s correspondence with Sirius also continues. Sirius is a well of stories about his own Hogwarts days and his time spent with Harry’s dad, and he always seems excited to be hearing from Harry. Harry writes at least once a week, and always gets a reply within a few days. He writes to Remus, too, less frequently; the other man seems a bit more reserved, but equally warm. The third week of November, Harry finds himself thinking wistfully about perhaps getting to meet them over Christmas break, something Sirius has mentioned several times. He’s said that he’s in contact with Dumbledore about it, trying to make an arrangement. He doesn’t sound hopeful that Harry will be allowed to come with him for the _entire_ break, but at least, Harry thinks, he might be able to visit for a day, or even stay over for one night during the break. Maybe even over Christmas itself, which seems so dreamlike as to be impossible.

It grows colder and rainier, and then, overnight early in December, Hogwarts turns into a snowy wonderland. Sometime in the middle of the night it had begun to snow, and Harry wakes to find that the entire landscape of the castle has been transformed, snow coming down out of every window and above their heads from the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall. It snows for three days, and when it ends Harry can hardly remember what Hogwarts looked like before it was blanketed in white. Even the lake freezes, and of course the snow provides the perfect chance for snowball fights. Fred and George Weasley, who have something of a reputation, are given a week’s worth of detention for bewitching snowballs to follow Quirrell around and hit him repeatedly in the back of the head. All this, and Harry had thought the castle was magical _before_.

December also brings taunting from Malfoy about the fact that Harry will not be going home for the holiday, unlike every other Slytherin in Harry’s year. It’s kept to the common room, of course, and Harry just ignores it. For once he finds that Malfoy’s attempted barbs don’t sink in even a little, because even if the Dursleys _had_ wanted him back at Privet Drive, they couldn’t have paid Harry to go. As well, Sirius owls to say that finally, at long last, he’s gotten Dumbledore’s permission for Harry to visit over Christmas. _Unfortunately not for the whole break_ , he writes. _But Dumbledore will help you Floo to mine and Remus’s flat here in London on Boxing Day morning, and you’ll spend the night. I was wondering, Harry… would you like, maybe, to go visit your parents on Boxing Day? I know you said you’ve not had the chance to go see them yet, and I usually make a point to visit around Christmas._

Harry writes back and says, yes, of _course_ he’ll come and he would love to visit his parents; even on Christmas Day would be okay. He doesn’t add that it’s not like he has much sentimental attachment to Christmas, so doing something like visiting his parents in the permanent ward at the hospital wouldn’t make it any less of a holiday; maybe more of one, in fact. He can’t wait, and excitedly tells Hermione and Neville and Weasley about it. Hermione and Neville would both be going home, of course, but Weasley admits that he’ll be staying at Hogwarts over the break, too; his parents, he says, are going to Romania to visit his older brother Charlie.

“How many brothers do you _have_?” Harry had asked, completely sincere, but Weasley had glared as if he’d been insulted and that had been the end of _that_.

Of course, there’s also something the Gryffindor trio _aren’t_ telling Harry, and he can’t quite figure out what it is. Weasley in particular gets very defensive when Harry catches them whispering, and Hermione has been spending even more time in the library than usual, researching important figures in the magical world, if the titles of the books she’s been carrying about are anything to go on. Eventually, Harry decides that whatever it is, they’ll tell him sooner or later if it’s important, and he leaves it be for the time being. No use getting into a row with Weasley or upsetting Hermione making them tell him if it proves to be nothing.

And then the holidays arrive and Neville and Hermione go off on the Hogwarts Express, back to London, and Harry and Weasley and a few scarce others are left behind in the castle.

Over breakfast the first morning, all of the remaining students sat around one large table that had appeared overnight, Harry leans over to Weasley and he says, “The best part isn’t even having a dorm all to myself; it’s that Malfoy’s gone.”

Weasley snorts and says, “Definitely,” and after that he relaxes enough to offer to teach Harry how to play Wizard’s Chess. Both of them are alone in their dorms, and while it’s nice to have some space to themselves for once, it also gets lonely and boring eventually, and for lack of anyone else that they actually know they end up hanging out together. They spend the first part of the break mostly on Wizard’s Chess, because even though Weasley—”Ugh,” he says, “just call me Ron already,”—says he’s pretty sure the rules are the same as Muggle chess, Harry doesn’t know how to play that either. Of course it turns out he’s utter pants at it, but it’s Ron’s favourite game, so Harry puts up with losing horribly until he gets enough of a hang of it to only lose badly, and occasionally approach doing alright. Ron, aside from having much more practice, proves to have a good head for strategy, playing out long term plans that Harry can never see coming. Harry’s only saving grace is that while he tends to blunder into things blindly, he can sometimes weasel out again, and he gets better at that as he goes along.

“You’re such a Slytherin,” Ron says contemplatively, after Harry’s started developing that particular strategy, as much as it could be called a strategy.

Harry shrugs. “Not like I’m _trying_ to be,” he says. “‘S just how I am, I s’pose. Just like you’re a Gryffindor without trying.”

“I guess,” Ron says. “Still don’t much like any of the rest of your House, though.”

“Neither do I,” Harry admits.

“Well,” Ron says, and then is quiet for a minute, staring at the chessboard. And then he says, “Castle to E3. Checkmate.”

Harry groans and starts sweeping up the chunks of his smashed pieces. “Once more, and then I’m done getting trounced by you for today.”

“Fair enough,” Ron says, cheerful, and they set about fixing the board.

On Christmas morning, Harry wakes up expecting nothing more than a holiday breakfast with the staff and remaining students, but finds a small pile of wrapped gifts on the foot of his bed. He has to sit and stare in shock for a long few minutes, and when he shakes it off he’s glad no one else was around to witness it, though maybe then someone could have told him that he wasn’t hallucinating having Christmas gifts— _real_ Christmas gifts—for the first time in his life. He scrubs a hand across prickling eyes and gingerly picks up the first one, half expecting it to vanish from his hands, some kind of cruel magical trick. But it doesn’t.

Very carefully, Harry unwraps each of his small pile of gifts. The Dursleys have sent him fifty pence taped to the inside of an envelope, which is surprising only in that they sent him anything at all. More truly a surprise, Professor Sprout has send him a box of half a dozen Chocolate Frogs and a friendly Christmas card with a poinsettia on it. As well, he’s got gifts from Hermione and from Neville. The former has sent him a neat Muggle planner with all the days of the week separated out, designed to last until the end of term, as well as a box of ballpoint pens; he’s still struggling a bit to adapt to quills, and had complained to Hermione some weeks ago that he hadn’t thought to bring any Muggle pens with him for his own notes like she had. Of course, he still has to hand things in written with a quill, but for writing in this planner the pens will be perfect. Neville has sent him a little packet of seeds that will apparently sprout bluebells that actually chime like bells. The note with it says that he’s noticed that Harry likes plants and is good at working with them, and perhaps he’ll be able to plant these at home.

It’s embarrassing, actually: Harry hadn’t expected gifts, and so had bought nothing in return for his friends. He hopes that they’ll be okay with a thank you note, which he promises himself he’ll write and send today, as well as an apology for not getting them anything; the same for Professor Sprout.

There’s also one other gift. Wrapped in smooth black paper with silver stars on it, it feels squashy and light when Harry picks it up, and he wonders if someone has bought him a jumper. There’s no tag on the present to tell him who it’s from, but when he unwraps it, taking just as much care as he had with the others, a note falls out from the folds of silky, silvery fabric that he reveals. He picks that up first and reads it.

 

_Your father left this in my possession before he was attacked. It is time it was returned to you. Use it well._

_A Very Merry Christmas to you._

 

Harry stares at the little scrap of paper, bewildered. There’s no signature and he doesn’t recognize the handwriting, which means it’s not from Sirius or Remus, who would simply say it was from them. But who else had been close to his father, enough to have been left one of his belongings? Was this _really_ his father’s? He runs his hand over the fabric, and then clambers out of bed and picks it up to shake it out, to see what sort of thing it is.

It proves to be a cloak, silvery but with shifting undertones of colour. It’s unlike anything Harry’s ever seen before, and also unlike anything Harry has ever touched. It feels paper-thin and delicate under his hands, but when he tries to stretch it gently, it’s firm and strong, as well as being incredibly pleasant to touch, flowing across his skin like water. Experimentally, he swings it around his shoulders and finds that while there’s certainly fabric to spare and it encompasses his body completely, it doesn’t drag obnoxiously on the ground, which he hadn’t expected given how large it seemed just holding it up.

Then Harry turns to look at how he looks in it in the mirror, and he almost screams. His body is _gone_. He whips off the cloak, and sees his body reappear as he does so. Covering an outstretched arm with it makes that arm invisible; throwing the cloak over his head makes him vanish completely.

“Amazing,” Harry whispers, and can’t _wait_ to ask Sirius what sort of things his dad got up to with this cloak when he sees him the next day.

That evening is Christmas dinner. It’s absolutely the most fabulous Christmas dinner that Harry has ever had, and the students and staff all sit together around a round table so as to pull fantastical Christmas crackers. Out of each small cracker, improbably, pops a full-sized hat. Harry receives a fetching plum coloured top hat, which he plops onto his head and wears as he devours turkey and ham, stuffing, and a loaded jacket potato. The professors, seated together on one side of the table, are clearly drinking something other than pumpkin juice, as they get steadily more festive as the evening goes on. To Harry’s shock, Professor McGonagall actually _giggles_ at one point in response to something Hagrid says, and while Snape is still dour even he seems to relax a little, rolling his eyes at Dumbledore’s grand hand gestures (which drag his sleeves through the gravy on his plate without his noticing).

After dinner, Harry wanders back down to the dungeons, tired and happily full. He settles into bed with a sigh, snuggling down into his covers, and thinks about the note that Dumbledore had passed him as he left the Great Hall. It has instructions to come to his office at 11 o’clock tomorrow morning; the entrance is on the seventh floor, and Harry should tell that gargoyle that Dumbledore’s current favourite candy is a blood pop. (Privately, Harry hopes a blood pop isn’t actually made of blood, but wixen have an awful lot of strange things.) He can’t wait to go, to finally get to meet Sirius and Remus and have Christmas with people who really seem to care about him.

* * *

The next morning, Harry wakes bright and early. He stares at the canopy of his bed for a moment, and then remembers that he’s going to see Sirius and Remus today and nearly leaps out of bed. He takes a moment to do a little dance in the middle of the dorm room, knowing that no one is there to see him do it, and then throws himself into his morning ritual. He’s done in no time and throws his things into his satchel for the day: the Invisibility Cloak stuffed at the bottom, then a book to read just in case, and he packs a change on clothes in on top. Then he makes his way down to the Great Hall to snag a bite of breakfast before he goes. Ron and the Weasley twins aren’t up, but Percy Weasley is and he gives Harry a cordial nod across the table. There are a few other students eating as well, but Harry doesn’t really know them. Instead he tucks into his own breakfast, and when he checks the time after he finishes he finds it’s nearly nine—he’s got lots of time to kill before he needs to be in Dumbledore’s office.

It’s difficult to decide what to do with himself: he feels jittery and excited, and he doesn’t really want to sit and read or try to do homework, but wandering around the castle by himself isn’t that interesting either. Still, that’s better than nothing, so he sets off to see if he can find anything fun before he has to go to see the Headmaster.

The real problem with exploring Hogwarts is that there are a lot of locked doors, or doors that only have walls behind them, or doors that make rude noises when you try to open them or resize themselves or the handles lick your hands… or bite them. Still, sometimes you can find a gem. Today, Harry finds the door to the trophy room, and he wanders inside to inspect the cases full of trophies and the plaques hanging on the walls. One small case holds the few Awards for Special Services to the School, which are very shiny and decorative. The most recent, Harry sees, was awarded to one Tom Riddle, about fifty years ago. He wonders briefly what the boy had done, and then shrugs and wanders on.

One case is dedicated entirely to Quidditch. There’s a plaque listing the House victories in the annual cup going back fifty years. There are also small shiny medals dedicated to individual positions and players: Keepers with high save counts, Seekers who win games for their team consistently or quickly, Chasers with remarkable scoring records. Oliver Wood has a small medal in the section dedicated to Keepers, to Harry’s surprise, but then he supposes it makes sense that he’d become captain if he has such a good record.

Then Harry’s eyes catch on a particular award in the little display of Chaser medals: the name on it is James Potter. His own father had played Quidditch in school, and given the number of goals scored written on the medal, he’d been quite good. It’s for a particular year; Harry isn’t sure how old his father had been at the time, but he makes a mental note to ask Sirius about it this afternoon. He spends a long time standing there staring at that medal, imagining his father flying. Imagining his father teaching _him_ to fly, to handle a Quaffle or catch a Snitch. Never before has Harry felt so keenly the life he could have had.

Harry’s reverie is interrupted by the single _bong_ from the school’s clock, tolling half-past ten. It’ll take him a few minutes to walk to the Headmaster’s office, he thinks, and he’d better get going now. He shoots one more wistful look at James Potter’s name engraved in polished brass, and then forces himself to head for the door. He walks, lost in thought, to the Headmaster’s office. When he arrives, he has to stare at the gargoyle for a moment. It’s quite intimidating, really, with its long tongue lolling out… but after a few seconds, it winks at him.

Harry laughs, then says, “Blood pops.”

The gargoyle nods its large head and turns aside, and Harry walks past it onto the first of the stairs. Once he’s stepped onto the stone, they slowly begin to rise, rotating around, until he’s brought to a stop in front of a door. From behind the door, the Headmaster’s voice says, “Come in, Mr. Potter.”

Harry pushes the door open and steps inside. The Headmaster’s office is filled with many strange things: globes made of wire with small balls that run along the lines, and twirling rods, and glass balls filled with coloured gas, and small objects that orbit through the air. The room is filled with chiming noises and motion; nothing is still or silent. Across the office, Headmaster Dumbledore is seated behind his desk in an ornate chair similar to the one he sits in in the Great Hall, and behind his shoulder, a massive red-and-gold feathered bird with an impressive plume on its head is perched. It croons gently as Harry approaches, and he feels his excitement settle from the half-manic thing that had been making him jittery all morning into a happy bubble of joy and anticipation.

“Good morning, Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore says as Harry approaches. “Happy Christmas.”

“To you, too, sir,” Harry says, stopping in front of the desk. He grasps the strap of his satchel tightly.

“Are you all ready to go?”

“Oh, yes,” Harry says.

“You have everything you need?”

“Yes, sir.”

Dumbledore eyes him keenly for a moment, a smile on his face and his eyes twinkling blue behind his half-moon spectacles. “You seem quite prepared, yes. Well, we’re a few minutes early yet; I’ll send you through just at 11, so as not to give Sirius and Remus a shock. Would you like a lemon drop?”

Harry glances at the offered bowl and then says, “Um, alright. Thank you, Headmaster.”

He takes a small candy from the bowl and pops it in its mouth. As he supposes he should have expected, it’s as sour as if he’d bitten into a real lemon, only slightly cut with sweetness. He feels his face pucker a little, and Dumbledore chuckles at him.

“I take it you are still discovering all the delights of magical sweets?” he asks.

Harry nods, crunching down on the hard candy to get through the sourness fast. “Yes, sir. The Dursleys didn’t let me have many sweets at all, really, but wixen do have some very interesting things.”

“Sticklers for health, your aunt and uncle?”

Harry shrugs. “Not particularly.”

Dumbledore nods thoughtfully. “And are you excited to meet Sirius and Remus, Mr. Potter?”

“Very much, sir,” Harry says. “I think it’s going to be the best Christmas I’ve ever had.”

“That is very good to hear, my boy.”

“Sirius said he’d take me to see my parents,” Harry says, after a moment.

“And are you looking forward to that?” Dumbledore asks, leaning forward slightly. “Or are you nervous?”

Harry shrugs. “Looking forward, I think. I know they’re… sick. In the hospital. But they’re still my parents.”

“That seems a good way to think about it.” Dumbledore folds his hands on his desk and meets Harry’s eyes. “Did you wish you could visit your parents while you were growing up?”

Harry shakes his head. “Well, I didn’t think I could. Aunt Petunia told me they were dead.”

“Dead?” Dumbledore blinks, surprised. “Perhaps she thought it would be easier on you.”

“I think mostly she just didn’t want me asking questions that might end up with me knowing about magic,” Harry says matter-of-factly. He swallows the last of the candy. “She and Uncle Vernon don’t much like magic.”

“I see,” says Dumbledore. “Well, in no time at all you will be a very capable wizard, and perhaps you will be able to teach them about a few of the joys of the magical world. Such as our sweets. Another lemon drop, Mr. Potter?”

“No thank you, sir,” says Harry, who has only just managed to get the lingering sourness out of his mouth. It was quite a powerful flavour, and left him quite distracted during the conversation; in hindsight Harry thinks he was maybe a bit more honest about the Dursleys than he’d have liked to be, even with the Headmaster. “Is it about time for me to go?”

Dumbledore pulls an ornate pocketwatch from his robes, which are a bright sky blue with animated clouds blowing across them, Harry now notices. He checks the time and says, “Ah! Indeed. Let me instruct you in the use of the Floo, Mr. Potter; I assume you have never used it before.”

“No, sir,” Harry agrees, and follows Dumbledore over to the fireplace. Dumbledore removes a small earthenware pot from the mantlepiece and shows Harry that it’s filled with a dark, ashy-looking powder that glitters slightly.

“I shall do it for you this first time,” Dumbledore says, “so as to avoid any potential mishaps. However, the process is quite simple: you must take a handful of Floo powder, like so,” he takes a palmful of the power from the pot into his hand, “and throw it into the fireplace, preferably unlit. As you do so, announce the Floo address your destination as clearly as possible. This is sometimes the street address, or the name by which the house is known. Then, if you are already within the fireplace, you will Floo away; otherwise, simply step through.”

“Okay,” Harry says, and lets Dumbledore usher him into the fireplace, saying that it’s somewhat easier this say.

Once Harry is arranged, Dumbledore dashes the powder down around Harry’s feet and announces, “The Doghouse!”

Green fire flares up around Harry, but before he can be alarmed, Dumbledore steps back and says cheerfully, “Mind you don’t trip on your way out! Happy Christmas, Mr. Potter!”

And then Harry is whirled away. The green fire comes up all the way around him, mostly obscuring his vision, but through its occasional flickers he sees dark openings passing him by. It’s quite dizzying, feeling like he’s being spun about, and very warm; and then all of a sudden he’s expelled forcefully through an upcoming grate. Despite Dumbledore’s warning, he does indeed trip, and stumbles face first through the fireplace he’s arrived at. Fortunately for him, someone is standing just in front of it, and catches him with an “Oof!”

“Good timing,” says a warm, wry voice from the side. “Spot-on 11.”

Harry leans back from the person who’s caught him and looks up to see a grinning man with handsome, aristocratic features, dark grey eyes, and a grin on his face. Long, wavy black hair is held back in a queue, with a few curls left to frame his face, giving him a rakish look.

“Hullo, Harry,” the man says. “Nice to meet you.”

The other voice speaks up again, says, “Quite.”

Harry glances over to see another man standing there, this one wearing a soft-looking cardigan. He’s got striking amber eyes with warmth to match his voice, and his face is marked with several long, slanting scars.

“Hullo,” Harry says, and removes himself from maybe-Sirius, the one who caught him. “Nice to meet you too.”

“I’m Sirius Black,” says the dark-haired man, confirming Harry’s suspicions. “I, uh. I’m your godfather.”

“Which makes me Remus,” Remus says, and comes over to lay a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “It’s very good to see you.”

Harry nods, still feeling a little stunned from his abrupt arrival. “Nice to meet you,” he says, and then flushes when he realizes he’s repeated himself.

Sirius laughs. “It’s alright. Come in, come in, sit down. We’ll have a bit of a small Christmas, get you some tea after your journey through the Floo. Always a bit of an adventure that, was it your first time? Come on!”

He waves Harry after him, still chattering—he starts in on a story about getting terribly lost in the Floo system as a child when he’d choked on a bit of fireplace ash and ended up in Devon. Remus lets Harry go ahead of him into the den. It’s a bit reassuring, Harry thinks, that the both of them seem as nervous as he suddenly is.

The den is painted a dark red colour and is equipped with a squashy yellow couch and an armchair with a terribly ugly floral pattern, as well as surprisingly non-magical lamps, a tall grandfather clock, and a telly. There’s a large window next to the telly, and on the other side of the window there’s a miniature Christmas tree with magical lights sparkling on its branches and hung ornaments. The star has been replaced by a birdcage with some sort of light inside of it that moves while Harry is looking at it, making him jump slightly.

“It’s a fairy,” Sirius says, having turned when he entered the room and seen Harry’s reaction. “Easy enough to convince one to spend Christmas atop your tree if you bribe them with marshmallow; they love sugar.”

“Oh,” Harry says, and drifts a bit closer to look at it. As he does, he registers that there’s a small pile of presents under the tree, mostly wrapped in red and gold paper.

“Most of those are for you,” Remus says from the doorway, sounding a bit embarrassed. Sirius has flopped into the ugly armchair to watch Harry examine the room. “We had ten years of missed Christmases to make up for; might have gone a bit overboard.”

“Oh,” Harry says again, more surprised this time. “Um, you didn’t need to.”

“We wanted to,” says Sirius. “Come on, have a sit down and let Remus fetch things, he’s a great elf.”

“You’re the one who ought to be playing fetch, you old dog,” Remus grumbles, but he does go over to the tree and kneel down next to it. When he looks pointedly at the couch, Harry goes over and sits, taking off his satchel and putting it down on the floor.

“Would you like some tea, Harry?” Sirius asks. “Or cocoa? We’ve that too.”

“Um, no thank you,” Harry says. “I’m alright.”

“Alright, well, just ask if you need anything.”

“Okay.”

Sirius smiles at him, then asks, “So, how’s good old Hogwarts treating you?”

“Good,” Harry says. “It’s brilliant, really. I love learning magic.”

“Your mum loved it too,” Remus says, shifting through the pile. After a moment, he comes up with two gifts. One is wrapped in dark blue paper with twinkling stars, and the other is wrapped in silver foil. He hands the dark blue one up to Sirius, and the other he tosses gently to Harry, who nearly fumbles it before he grasps it; it’s heavier than he was expecting, as it’s only a small cube shape.

“Good choice,” Sirius says to Remus. Then both of them turn to look at Harry expectantly.

He hesitates for a moment before opening it. “I didn’t get you anything,” he says apologetically. “I wasn’t really expecting gifts, and…”

“It’s alright, Harry,” Remus says. “We weren’t expecting anything from you. We know our invitation came last minute, too, so you wouldn’t have been able to get anything unless you owl-ordered, and you might not know how to do that yet.”

“No,” Harry says. “Um, thank you.” Then he tears open the foil and reveals a black box. Inside the box, nested in red satin, is a Golden Snitch, pristine and shining. He gasps a little, and reaches out to brush it with his fingers. “Wow.”

When he looks up, Sirius is grinning. “Figured you might like that—you said you liked to fly. Your dad had one a lot like it; it’s got a setting so that it’ll follow you around, if you’d like, or you can practice with it. Not meant for games but it’s a pretty neat little toy.”

“I love it,” Harry says. “Thank you so much.”

He finds himself saying that a lot over the next hour. He tries to take his time instead of tearing into his gifts, but Sirius has no such compunctions with the few presents Remus has gotten him (the first one he’d been handed turns out to be a rope toy for a dog, which is a bit mysterious as they don’t seem to own a dog, but he laughs and seems excited). Remus is a little more dignified in opening the cufflinks and the bottle of whiskey Sirius has bought for him, but he encourages Harry all the same to open the presents they’ve bought for him.

In the end, Harry comes away feeling a little like he’s won some sort of lottery. He receives the Snitch, a pair of silver cufflinks with engraved Ps, a box from Honeyduke’s with a variety of magical sweets (including a blood pop), and a warm scarf made from extremely soft light grey fabric and matching gloves and toque. At one point Sirius hands him a thin rectangular package that he digs out from behind the tree, to Remus’s consternation, which turns out to be a thing book on something called Animagi. Remus glares; “Never too early to start reading,” Sirius says in a tone that ought to suggest that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, but falls somewhere closer to ‘mischievous’ instead.

There’s also one final gift, especially valuable.

“This was your dad’s, part of a set that he and I made back in the day,” Sirius says as Harry pulls off the wrapping to reveal a hand mirror. “If you say my name, mine will chime, and we’ll be able to talk. Or the same with Remus’s name and his. I figured it’d be easier than writing letters all the time, though we can keep doing that too if you’d like.”

“Yeah,” Harry says, staring down at it in awe. “Thank you, Sirius. This is amazing.”

“If only you and James had put all that talent into something other than pranks,” Remus sighs.

“As if you weren’t in on them all,” Sirius replies fondly, and leans over in the armchair to kiss Remus’s cheek. Remus swats him away, but he’s smiling.

“Pranks,” Harry murmurs, and when they both look at them he flushes a little. “It’s just… well. I got a gift from someone yesterday, and I meant to ask you about it.” He reaches into his satchel and he pulls out the slippery fabric of the Invisibility Cloak.

Both Sirius and Remus go still when they see it, and then seemingly without thinking Sirius reaches across to where Harry’s sitting on the couch and touches it, rubs it between his fingers.

“I thought it’d been lost,” Remus says, “or stolen.”

Sirius shakes his head. “Me too. Or that it had reverted to the Potter vault.”

Harry clears his throat, which shakes both men from their stupor. “Whoever gave it to me didn’t sign the note. Just said my dad had left it in their keeping, and that I should use it well.”

“Well,” Sirius says, and laughs. “I suppose whoever it is means, _better than we did_. We mostly used it for playing tricks and exploring after hours.”

“Between that and the Map we were nearly impossible to catch,” Remus says, nodding in agreement. “Brilliant, really. I’m still surprised Charlus ever trusted James with it.”

“It was my grandfather’s?” Harry asks, leaning forward eagerly.

“Oh, yes,” says Sirius. “There’ve been quiet rumours in pureblood circles about that Cloak that go back _generations_. It’s a true Potter heirloom. After… after James and Lily were attacked and you were sent off to your aunt and uncle, Remus and I thought it had been taken or destroyed, or that it had vanished back into the vault, magically recalled—neither of us had access to the House’s vault, of course, so we couldn’t check.” He sighs. “It took me a long time to be ready to go back to Godric’s Hollow, where their house was, and search through for their belongings. It’d been sealed by the Ministry, so nothing had been stolen, but the Cloak was missing.”

“The obvious assumption, as Sirius says, was that the Death Eaters had done away with it, and in those days we were rather prone to assuming the worst,” Remus says. “But clearly James passed it off to someone in secret some time before the attack.”

“And whoever it was never told us,” Sirius says. He sounds frustrated. “It would have been nice to know that it was safe.”

“What’s done is done,” Remus says. He lays a hand on Sirius’s arm, and Sirius pats it.

“You have it now, that’s what matters,” Sirius says after a moment. “I really do recommend taking a look around the castle after dark. Just be careful—the prefects patrol until a little after 11 to catch stragglers and make sure everyone out for Astronomy gets back, and there are two professors out each night until midnight or a while after, depending on who it is; the Cloak doesn’t make you silent, just invisible.”

Remus nods. “You can still get caught even with it, and if you _do_ get caught with it it’s sure to be confiscated.”

“Alright,” Harry says. “Um, but shouldn’t you be encouraging me… not to break the rules in the first place?”

Sirius and Remus share a look, and then they both laugh.

“We called ourselves the Marauders back in school,” Sirius says. “And you’ve heard a few of my stories by now. Break all the rules you want, Harry, so long as you’re not putting yourself in danger or getting caught.”

Remus rolls his eyes and then says, “Or hurting anyone else. Just because Sirius has no sense of sane boundaries doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. A bit of exploration, however, never harmed anyone.”

“Okay,” Harry says, though he’s thinking of the three-headed dog he met on the third-floor corridor, and figures he’d best hope not to explore himself into anything like that again.

After presents, Remus gets up to make tea, and Sirius regales Harry with the story of their one and only attempt to break into the Slytherin common room. Harry had described the space a little in his letters, but he goes into more detail now, telling Sirius about the way the light filters through the waters of the Black Lake during the day, and that while he’d found it a little gloomy at first, he’s starting to like it.

In person it’s somewhat more clear that Sirius is a bit dismayed that Harry was Sorted into Slytherin; he makes a few comments that suggests that the relationship between Gryffindor and Slytherin was as tense in their school days as it is now. He also mentions that they went to school with Snape, and when Harry tells him that he’s sort of a berk, Sirius gains a very vindicated look. Remus just calls from the kitchen that Harry should not be calling his professors ‘berks’, no matter how nasty they are.

They share tea and some sandwiches for lunch, and once they’ve eaten, Sirius sighs and says, “Are you still feeling up to visiting St. Mungo’s, Harry? If so, we ought to go now—visiting hours end at four in the Janus Thickey Ward.”

Harry swallows, but he nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I want to go.”

“Alright. Bring the Cloak, eh? Your dad… might not recognize it, but he also might. Hard to know.”

“Okay,” Harry says quietly, and repacks his bag. He leaves his change of clothes on a small pile on the couch because Remus says that’s okay, but he brings his book and the Cloak.

Once he’s ready, Sirius says, “We usually Apparate, but since you’ve already had one new magical transport experience today we can Floo if you’d rather.”

Harry hesitates. “I’ll try Apparating.”

“Alright,” Sirius says. “Come on, we’ve got wards to prevent Apparating directly in or out of the apartment, so we’ll go outside.”

It turns out that by outside, Sirius actually means just out onto a porch. It opens off of their small kitchen/dining room, and the three of them just barely fit onto it; there’s a small table and two chairs taking up most of the standing room. The table has an ashtray with a few cigarette butts on it.

Sirius instructs Harry to hold tightly onto his arm and that he’ll feel like he’s being squeezed through a tube, but so long as he doesn’t let go he’ll be just fine. Harry wraps both his hands around Sirius’s arm in something of a death grip, hearing that, and a moment later Sirius turns on his heel and with a popping noise, they Apparate. Sure enough it feels quite a lot like being squeezed through a tube, a very _small_ tube, and Harry thinks that Sirius quite understated the crushing sensation. However, it only lasts a moment before they reappear somewhere new. Harry staggers a bit, disoriented and feeling a bit ill, but Sirius steadies him with an arm around his shoulders. Next to them, Remus appears a moment later with a _crack_.

The room they’ve appeared in seems to be designed specifically for the purpose of Apparating into: it’s large and square and empty. A wix in a lime green robe eyes them from the sole doorway, but when it becomes clear that none of them are injured they wave and let them pass. The three of them step out of the Apparition room into what’s clearly a lobby, though much more colourful than any lobby Harry’s ever seen before. There are more wixen in colourful robes dashing this way and that, some carrying stretchers and others speaking to patients sitting in waiting room chairs. Many look generically miserably, pale-faced or with nauseated expressions, or groaning and clutching parts of their bodies. Others are significantly more exotic in appearance: there’s a woman with an elephant’s trunk instead of a nose, and a small boy scratching at brightly coloured splotches on his face which change colour as he itches them, accompanied by an exhausted-looking man with the same affliction.

They walk past a desk with a cheerful-looking witch sitting behind it, and she glances up at them as they pass, opening her mouth to give directions. Quickly, though, she recognizes Sirius and Remus, and says, “Good afternoon, Mr. Black, Mr. Lupin!”

“Hullo,” Sirius says, but doesn’t stop to chat with her, instead ushering Harry past her quickly.

“Have a good visit!” she calls after them.

They step into an elevator, and Sirius and Remus both release a relieved sigh.

“Chatty as anything, Mary is,” Remus says, reaching out to press the large glowing _4_ on the button panel. “We’d have been there an hour if we stopped even for a moment.”

“Oh,” says Harry, who’d been thinking that she seemed very nice.

“Never hurts to get to know the Welcome Wix,” Sirius says to Harry. “They’re always bored, and sometimes they’ve got interesting stories. But, well, they’re _always_ bored.”

Harry nods attentively, and then the elevator chimes and the doors slide open, revealing a quiet hallway.

“Fourth floor,” Remus says softly, his voice instinctively hushed. “Spell damage.”

Harry nods again, more solemn this time, and follows Sirius and Remus down the hallway to a set of double doors. The burnished bronze plaque above the doors says _49_ , and just below it _Janus Thickey Ward For The Permanently Damaged_.

Seeing Harry looking at it, Sirius says, “Always thought that was a bit insensitive, myself. You never know, after all, and ‘permanently’ does a lot to banish hope.” He pauses in front of the doors and pulls out his wand, points it at the door, and mutters, “ _Alohomora.”_ Then he pushes the door open and leads his way into the ward.

Harry’s first impression of Ward 49 is that it’s… peaceful. There are soft voices coming from one area, and a healer with curly grey hair is sitting at a desk off to the site working on some paperwork. The walls are painted a gentle blue-grey, and there are wide windows lining the left-hand wall. There are small cubicles divided by hanging curtains, some of which are pulled back to reveal beds with chairs beside them. As they come in, the healer looks up from her desk and beams when she sees them.

“Mr. Black, Mr. Lupin! Happy Christmas to you, so good to see you,” she says, springing up. She comes over to shake their hands, and then looks down at Harry. Her eyes go a little wide when he looks up at her. “And this must be the young Mr. Potter. I’d recognize those eyes anywhere, and the rest of him so much like his father…”

“Quite,” Remus says, laying a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Happy Christmas to you too, Healer Strout. We’re here to see James and Lily, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

“A first visit for Mr. Potter, too, how wonderful. Well, last I checked they were both awake, and I’m sure they’ll be very glad to see you,” the healer says, clucking down at Harry in a matronly way. “You’ve been enough times that you know the way, boys; I’ll leave you to show Mr. Potter.”

“Thank you,” Sirius says, and glances down the ward toward the far end of the long room.

“This way, Harry,” Remus says, and guides Harry by his shoulder after Sirius as he sets off.

They walk almost all the way to the end of the ward, and then Sirius comes to a stop in front of a pair of curtained cubicles, both of which are closed. He holds out a hand to Harry, and Harry reaches out to hold it. He can’t remember ever having his hand held by an adult before and isn’t sure he needs it, but it looks like Sirius could use the comfort so he decides he doesn’t mind so much that Sirius squeezes a bit tightly.

“Here we go,” Sirius murmurs, and parts the curtains.

Inside there are two beds. A curtain hangs between them, but it’s not drawn, creating one larger room with two bed tables and four chairs as well as the beds. One of the bed tables has a vase on it filled with sunflowers, and the bed it sits next to is occupied. A woman is sitting on the edge of the bed staring down at something she’s holding in her hands. She has red hair streaked with grey that hanks limp and thin around her face, disguising her features. Her shoulders seem skinny; her wrists are bony.

She looks up when Remus slides the curtain closed behind them. Harry’s mouth feels so dry. Her eyes are green, like his, and the same shape, but not as bright; her absent, distracted gaze makes the colour seem duller. But she smiles when she sees them. It’s a faint thing, and she doesn’t quite look at them, so it’s more like she’s smiling just because that’s what one does than because she’s actually happy.

“Hey, Lils,” Sirius says quietly, and he goes over to the bed to touch her shoulder gently. She looks up at him, still smiling in that distant way. “What’ve you got there?”

When he points to her hands she looks back down at them, and then opens them up to show something to Sirius. Harry can’t quite make out what it is, and he takes a hesitant step closer.

“It’s okay, Harry,” Remus says from behind his shoulder. “I’m just going to go say hello to James; you go meet Lily.”

“Okay,” Harry tries to say, but his throat is so tight that it comes out as barely half a whisper. He takes another step, until he can see that his mum—his _mum_ —is holding a muggle candy wrapper. It’s gold and shiny; Harry thinks he remembers seeing Dudley with that sort of candy in the past.

She looks over at him as he approaches. That absent green gaze almost makes him flinch, but he tries to steel himself.

“Hi, mum,” he says. Sirius is watching; Harry can’t decipher the look on his face. “It’s me. Harry. Um, your son. You… don’t remember me, I guess.”

“We don’t really know,” Sirius says softly. “Neither of them have spoken… since. They don’t seem to recognize us, but we don’t know what’s going on in their heads. Where the disconnect is.”

Harry nods and reaches out. His hand is trembling. Before he can touch her shoulder, though, as Sirius did, she turns toward him and she offers him the candy wrapper.

Sirius makes a noise a little like he’s been hit; Harry says, “Oh.” He hesitates for a moment, then takes the wrapper and smooths it between his fingers. Her skin, when he’d brushed it with his fingertips, had felt almost papery and very soft.

“Thanks, mum,” he says, when he can speak without bursting into tears.

She looks back down at her empty hands and laces her fingers together, awkward and girlish. She doesn’t look up at either of them again, but Harry and Sirius stand next to her for a time, quiet. Behind them Remus is talking, presumably to Harry’s dad, but he’s not listening. He’s just watching his mum stare at her hands as she twists her fingers together.

“She’s a lot better, really,” Sirius says, finally. “When they were first attacked she… couldn’t even really move for the shaking. The curse used against them, the Cruciatus, it damages the nerves somehow; I’m not a Healer, but they told us a bit. Fortunately there was a potion invented not long after they were attacked that healed the damage some. For a while we hoped…”

“That they would get better?” Harry looks up at Sirius.

“Yeah,” Sirius says. “And they did. But not the way we’d hoped. Sometimes it seems like maybe they’ve come back a little, but it’s always just been me getting my hopes up, making mountains out of molehills, y’know?”

“I know,” Harry says. “So this is just how they’re gonna be. Until they die.”

“Yes, Harry.” Sirius sounds sad and subdued, more so than Harry has heard him at all before. “This is how they are.”

“At least they’re alive.” Harry glances at his mum again, then swallows and says, “Can I go meet dad?”

“Sure thing, kiddo,” Sirius says, his voice thick, and wraps an arm around Harry’s shoulders to guide him over to the other bed. Harry’s dad is lying down facing away from them, and they come around to the side where Remus has sat down in a chair and is talking quietly, telling a story of some sort.

Harry’s dad looks a lot like him. Or, he supposes, he looks a lot like his dad. The same brown skin, and features similar to what he sees in the mirror, though he thinks looks a bit like his mum too. And they have the same hair. Dark and messy, James’s hair is longer than Harry and lies in untamed waves around his face. His eyes are half-open as he lies there, so he’s awake, but he doesn’t respond at all to Harry and Sirius’s arrival or to Remus’s voice.

“James is further away than Lily,” Sirius says. “But you can say hi to him. He can hear you, just… he won’t respond.”

“Okay,” Harry says. He leans down a little so that he can look his dad in the eye for the very first time, and he says, “Hi dad. Nice to meet you.”

James just stares back. His face, his eyes, they’re empty. It makes Harry shiver, and after a moment he has to look away. Maybe it would be better if they _were_ dead, he thinks, and immediately hates himself for thinking it. Nothing would be better if they were dead. It would be the exact same. They’re basically dead already.

“I’m gonna go sit with mum,” Harry says. Remus has paused in his storytelling but he nods and reaches out to grasp Harry’s wrist briefly, and Sirius pats his shoulder before they both turn their attention to James and let Harry slip away. He digs the Cloak out from his bag and hands it to Sirius before he goes, so that they can show his dad; he doesn’t think he wants to see it when nothing happens. He walks back over to the other bed and sits down next to his mum. He watches her for a little while, and then ends up staring at his hands the way she’s doing, because he can’t bear to look at her any more.

“Oh, Harry,” Remus says when they finally get up and come over to get him.

Harry looks up at him, and the movement makes him realize that there are tears running down his face. Embarrassed, he wipes them away, shoving his glasses askew as he does. Someone—Sirius, he realizes when he opens his eyes—reaches out to take them off his face and holds onto them until he’s taken a deep breath and then holds his hand out for them. He’s handed first his glasses, which he pushes back onto his nose, and then the Cloak so that it can be tucked away once more. “Can we go?” he asks.

“Of course,” Sirius says. “Let’s say goodbye, then we can go.”

Harry nods and says a quiet goodbye to his mum and to his dad, and then he follows Sirius and Remus out of the curtain cubicle. He doesn’t pay attention to much as they lead the way out of the hospital and back to the Apparition room, and mutely takes hold of Sirius’s arm once more to be popped back to their apartment. He only really comes back to where he is when he’s ensconced in the armchair in their living room and has had a cup of tea tucked into his hands. Sirius and Remus are sitting on the couch in front of him, both watching him worriedly.

“I’m sorry,” Sirius says immediately when he realizes that Harry is looking at him. “I knew it would be hard but I didn’t want you to be upset, Harry.”

“It’s okay,” Harry says, and takes a bracing sip of tea. “I wanted to see them. I thought I was ready.”

“You did very well,” Remus says. “It’s alright to feel sad and to cry, Harry. You’re here for the rest of the evening, until tomorrow morning, and if you want to talk about anything you’re welcome to do so, or to write to us or use the mirror once you’re back at Hogwarts.”

“Okay,” Harry says. He does not at all want to talk about it. “What’re we going to do now?”

Sirius and Remus share a look, and Harry immediately braces himself. “We wanted to have a brief talk with you, Harry,” Remus says, “before you decide for certain that you’d like to stay the night with us.”

Harry frowns. “Because you’re, uh…” He gestures between them.

“Oh,” says Sirius. “No. Sorry, I forget sometimes that muggles are strange about that. No, it’s not because we’re together. It’s more about why we call our household The Doghouse.”

“Why _you_ call it that,” Remus mutters. “And I couldn’t stop you from making it our Floo address.”

Sirius snorts. “Anyway. Um. First of all, meet Padfoot,” he says, and stands up, and then there’s a twist and a shiver and in Sirius’s place is a giant shaggy black dog. The dog woofs at Harry who stares, bewildered, and then turns back into Sirius once more. “I’m an animagus, you see. Not that there’s anything bad about that—it’s more why.”

“Um, alright,” says Harry. “That’s quite neat.”

“I think so too,” Sirius says proudly, and then sobers a bit. “You see, Harry, when your dad and I were in school together we found out a secret about Remus, and we decided to become animagi to help him.”

Remus rolls his eyes. “Very much without telling me, I assure you,” he says. “What they were doing was quite dangerous. But, well, I’m a werewolf.”

Then both Remus and Sirius wait for a moment, as if for a reaction. Harry just blinks at them. When it becomes clear they’re not going to speak before he does he says, “… Okay? So you… turn into a big wolf on the full moon?”

Remus and Sirius share another look, and then Remus says, very gently, “You’re not frightened?”

Harry shrugs. “I mean, you’re a person the rest of the time.”

“Ha!” crows Sirius abruptly. He reaches over and smacks Remus on the shoulder. “That’s what I said! Raised by muggles, indeed.” He looks at Harry. “In the magical world there’s quite a lot of prejudice against werewolves. I reckoned you were just a good kid; I forgot for a second that muggles don’t think werewolves are real and so aren’t nearly as scared.”

“Is that all?” Harry asks, relieved. “I thought… I don’t know. That it’d be something else.”

“It’s not so small,” Remus says, chiding. “I _am_ safe most days of the month and I’m glad you can see that, Harry, but when I transform it’s very dangerous. You should know that you’ll never be able to visit on the full moon, or even, if I get my way, on the days around it. It has a terrible effect on my temperament, and right after I’m often ill.”

“Alright,” Harry says. “Hermione gave me a Muggle planner for Christmas; I’ll mark the moons in it, if that’s alright. I don’t mind, I just won’t ask to visit those days.”

“Perfect,” Remus says, and smiles. “I’m glad, Harry.”

Harry smiles back. “Me too. I, um, I’m really happy to be here.”

“We’re very happy to have you,” Sirius says. “And now, come on, we were going to go out for a bit of a walk in London; you said in a letter that your aunt and uncle didn’t take you into the city much and we thought you’d like to see the neighbourhood.”

Harry would, in fact, very much like to see the neighbourhood. He bundles up in a coat that Sirius and Remus transfigure for him out of his school cloak and they set out and walk the streets. London is busy and beautiful, lots of people out shopping on Boxing Day, and they have an enjoyable afternoon walking around before getting Indian food for dinner and returning to the apartment. Remus goes out on the balcony to smoke while Sirius and Harry sit down in the living room to play Exploding Snap, and when he comes back in he settles down with a book. Every time something explodes he twitches a little, but other than that he seems content to ignore their laughter and chatter over the game.

Eventually it gets late and Harry starts to get tired, and when Remus catches him yawning for the second time he insists that Harry be ushered off to bed, at least to read for a while before sleeping, though Sirius protests that it’s Christmas and there’s no Hogwarts curfew to be obeyed. Remus wins out, however, with a devastatingly stern glance that makes Harry wonder if Remus has ever taught children, and so Harry is sent to the small second bedroom which has been made up with tidy blue sheets on the bed and a little lamp with a shade of green glass. The water colours remind him a little of the Slytherin common room, and he reads only a few pages of his book before sleep is pulling on him hard enough that he has to surrender.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: hospitalization and explicit portrayal of psychological trauma resulting from torture. If you don't feel up for dealing with that, stop reading at "Inside are two beds." and pick up again at "Harry nods and says a quiet goodbye..." If you have any more detailed questions about the section, feel free to ask. I only hope I've dealt with Lily and James's portayal in a sensitive manner; it's a difficult subject and I put a lot of care into it.
> 
> As usual, feel free to come talk to me on Tumblr - I'll be posting the beginning of the Ut Melior Malis playlist there sometime this week, and will update this note with a link when I've done so! And until then, comments fuel the writing machine, and kudos make the author smile!
> 
> ETA: I removed the memo about update schedule since it's now obsolete. However, I also wanted to add (as I got a comment about it) that I am aware that Charlus isn't canonically Harry's grandfather - I'm just simplifying things for myself here.


	7. The Mirror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm SO SORRY for updating late - I got distracted working on my thesis last night and completely blanked it.
> 
> Thank you all SO MUCH for 200+ kudos. This fic has been super well-received and I love all of you.
> 
> Please enjoy the chapter! See endnotes for details re: holiday hiatus.

Returning to Hogwarts is bittersweet. Harry loves the castle, but being with Sirius and Remus had been like finally having a real family, with people who love him. Adults who care about him, and care what happens to him, and want him to do well. He has to force himself not to ask even as he’s leaving when he might be able to return; if maybe, just maybe, he could spend the summer there. If he could spend _forever_ there. Neither of them say anything about it, but both seemed sad to see him go, so Harry thinks, _Maybe_.

Still, there’s something comforting about being back at Hogwarts once again. The long hallways and portraits that come in flavours of either ‘nosy’ or ‘standoffish’ and not much else, the moving staircases and smell of old stone and grass, the wooden doors and the low clang of the clocktower bell. It’s home already, really. Especially without the complicated politics that all the other Slytherins carry around with them constantly, from which Harry has very much been enjoying a break.

His return to the castle also grants him an opportunity to explore under the cover of darkness and the Cloak. He takes Sirius and Remus’s advice the very first night, waiting until after curfew when he’ll find the hallways the most silent and empty, and then he slings the cloak around his shoulders. It’s very strange still to look down at his own legs and see nothing but shadow, but he turns his eyes forward and slips out of the Slytherin common room, glad that they don’t have a talkative painted guardian like the Gryffindors do. The dungeons are nearly oppressively silent, and Harry makes his way quickly through the darkness to where there are windows to let in the moonlight. He doesn’t dare light his wand; he can navigate well enough with the slivers of pale illumination that come in from outside, enhanced in their brightness by reflections from the snow.

He thinks he hears distant footsteps once and stops, but the sound fades quickly. He keeps walking, not sure really where he’s going, and after a time comes across a door that’s been left ajar. He looks around, taking stock of where he is, and finds he’s not far from the entrance to the library. Harry considers the door, open just a crack, and then shrugs to himself and slips inside.

It’s an abandoned classroom, covered in dust. The desks are of an even more old and rickety style than the ones that the currently in-use classrooms have, and they’re piled against the walls along with the chairs. In one corner, there’s an upturned waste paper basket. And against the far wall, a large object is standing. Harry steps closer to it, pulling the Cloak off as he goes, and finds that it’s a massive mirror, surrounded by an ornate gold frame with clawed feet to support it. Above its arched top, the frame has carved into it the words _Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi._ He stares at that for a moment, but it doesn’t start making any more sense so he gives up and steps closer again—then almost jumps out of his skin and whirls around.

There’s no one standing there, but when he looks back to the mirror, there are distinct shadows behind him. Another step brings them into focus, and Harry gasps.

He can see his parents, standing there behind him. James and Lily Potter, the same people he met for the first time just yesterday… but they’re different. They’re not the hollowed-out versions of themselves that dwelt in hospital beds on the fourth floor of Saint Mungo’s. His mum is bright-eyed and glowing with health, her hair no longer streaked with grey or stringy, and his dad reaches out confidently to slip one arm around his wife’s waist, his expression fond and friendly. They’re _alive_ , awake and aware, and they meet Harry’s eyes through the mirror and smile at him.

Bracketing his mum and dad are Sirius and Remus, who both look about the same, if happier. And behind them, less distinct, are the figures of other people: some with his dad’s dark skin or messy hair, others with his mum’s green eyes. His _family_. His entire family, whole and happy. It’s impossible, and Harry can’t look away.

Harry can’t say exactly how long he stands there staring into the mirror, looking at his parents’ faces, how animated they are. The way Sirius and Remus seem at peace and joyful, without the stress and hidden sadness that Harry hadn’t realized they carried until seeing them here, now, without it. They look younger. Harry _wants_ that. He wishes he could give that to them—to make his parents well again, and to make everything better so that these people who could love him, who look at him now through this mirror with love, might be happy. He wants the smiles that are given to him and the way that the figures in the mirror reach out to touch his mirror-self. He wants to be touched in that way, gentle hands on his shoulders or ruffling his hair. To smile and be unburdened the way his mirror-self does.

A distant noise brings Harry out of his reverie and he realizes he’s been standing, staring at the mirror, for far too long. He needs to get to bed before he’s caught. It’s a struggle to turn away from the mirror, the clear emotion on the faces looking at him through its glass, but he whispers, “I’ll be back,” to it and pulls the Cloak over himself once again.

Harry scurries back to the dungeons and makes his way quickly to bed. He dreams that night of his mum and dad and all the rest, of what could have been. It’s a good dream, but he wakes up and wants to cry. He doesn’t, but that doesn’t stop him from _wanting_ to.

He ends up meeting up with Ron that day and thinks about telling him about the mirror and then thinks, no. Too risky. Ron’s sort of his friend now, but Harry’s not sure that he wouldn’t tell his brothers, and the more people know about the mirror the more likely it is that the teachers might find out and move it elsewhere. Harry doesn’t want that to happen, because if it were moved there’s no telling if he’d ever be able to find it again, and he desperately wants to be able to see his parents at least one more time. To see his _real_ parents, not the shells that have been preserved.

He goes back that night, and the next night too. Being able to sit with his parents and in a whisper tell them every secret wish he’s ever had is freeing. In the mirror, his mum sits down across from him, cross-legged just the same, and she seems to listen intently to every word he says. His dad crouches or leans down to rest a hand on mirror-Harry’s shoulder, or leans on his wife. Sirius and Remus, too, look relaxed and happy, smiling down at Harry. Every once in a while, one will turn to the other and make some comment, or Sirius will pinch Remus’s side gently just to make him jump, and they’ll both laugh. The feeling that it gives Harry to see their love plain on their faces, for him and for each other, is indescribable. He never wants to leave.

He knows that the sleepless nights are showing—Ron keeps giving him sideways looks, because he’s yawning a lot, and he has bags under his eyes. But he can’t care. He doesn’t even _want_ to care. He just wants to see his family and be with them.

Harry goes back the fourth night, the second-to-last night before the other students return to the castle, and is just settling down, pressing his hand to the mirror’s glass in a greeting, when he hears the soft swish of fabric behind him. He whirls and sees Dumbledore standing there, a sorrowful expression on his face.

“I’d wondered if this might be where you were going,” Dumbledore says.

“P-Professor!” Harry says, scrambling up to his feet. He tries to hide the Cloak behind his back. “Er-”

“Not to worry, Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore says. “There are many ways to remain unseen. You did not ignore me.”

_That wasn’t what I was worried about_ , Harry thinks. He says, “I’m sorry I’m out after curfew, sir.”

“It’s quite alright, my boy.” Dumbledore’s eyes twinkle behind his glasses. “A desire to explore is quite understandable, and once found, the Mirror of Erised is difficult to resist returning to.”

“Is that its name?” Harry asks, turning to glance up at the text above the mirror. “What… what’s it meant to do, sir?”

“What do you think?”

Harry frowns. His parents look back at him from the mirror, calm and steady. Confident in him. “It… shows things we want. Right?”

“Indeed,” Dumbledore says. “Not merely that, in fact: it shows nothing less than the deepest, most desperate desires of our hearts.”

“What do you see, sir?” Harry asks, and then immediately flushes, embarrassed by his own impertinence.

“I see myself,” Dumbledore says, “holding socks. I never seem to get any for Christmas.”

“Oh,” Harry says, conscious that he’s being lied to. Not that he’s got much right to call the Headmaster out—he really didn’t have the right to ask in the first place. “I see, sir.”

“I imagine you do, Harry. May I call you Harry?”

Harry shrugs.

“Well.” Dumbledore sighs. “I have come to tell you that the Mirror will be moving to a new home tomorrow. I suggest you do not look for it—it will not be here, nor anywhere else easy to find. And, should you come across it again, be wary: it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”

Harry sighs too, glancing back at the Mirror once more time. His parents smile sadly at him, as if they know that this is goodbye. “Yes, sir.”

Dumbledore escorts Harry back to the dungeons then and leaves him at the door to the Slytherin common room. He goes into his room and folds up the Cloak and tucks it carefully at the bottom of his trunk, not wanting the temptation. Dumbledore surely would not be so lenient if Harry were caught wandering again, and while the desire to find the Mirror has been thoroughly discouraged, there’s still plenty of the castle that Harry hasn’t seen. Later, he promises himself. When the other students are back and there will be other trouble-makers out after curfew to keep the professors’ attention.

That night he dreams of his mother’s high, thready screams as she twists and transforms from the vivid, beautiful woman he’d met in the mirror into the pale paper-doll version that lives in reality. The sound, too, of his father’s voice cracking and turning hoarse; he struggles against his own suffering, but in the end he falls silent too. Harry wakes sobbing and only stops himself from reaching for the hand-mirror Sirius had given him because he doesn’t know what time it is, and wouldn’t want to disturb them. A wise choice, he discovers, because it’s barely past dawn. He’d only slept a few hours. He tells himself he’ll call Sirius later, when he’s sure he won’t worry his godfather, and goes to take a long, hot shower.

Harry spends breakfast dodging Dumbledore’s keen gaze, which unfortunately makes it difficult to also downplay his tiredness to Ron, who asks him, “Did you not sleep well?”

“Bad dreams,” Harry says, glad that Ron had waited to ask until he could give an honest answer.

All Ron does is make an uncomfortable expression and ask if he’d like to go outside for a bit. Harry runs down to the dungeons first to grab the Snitch Sirius and Remus gave him, and they play with that for a while, and then Ron tries to levitate some snow with mixed success. Harry suggests testing the Whomping Willow’s dexterity by throwing some snowballs at it, and they do that for a while, amusing themselves with the explosions of white power that occur each time the Willow bats a snowball out of the air. Neither of them can throw fast enough to get past it.

That evening, Harry curls up in front of the common room fire and uses the mirror to call Sirius for the first time.

“Harry!” Sirius says, delighted, once he answers the call. “I’m so happy you called!”

“Me too,” Harry says, smiling. He feels a bit of the lingering tension leave him just at seeing Sirius’s face. “How are you?”

“I’m good! Remus and I have just finished dinner, I cooked—”

Harry lets him ramble for a bit, talking about the day he’s had, and replies in kind when Sirius asks him what he’s been getting up to at Hogwarts. He leaves out all mention of the Mirror of Erised or his nightmare.

“And everything’s okay, other than that?” Sirius asks, when Harry has finished telling about the Willow. “You look tired.”

“Just didn’t sleep well last night,” Harry says. “It’s kind of quiet in the Slytherin dorms, what with everyone gone. And I liked the street noise at your flat.”

Sirius smiles, his whole expression going soft. “I’m glad you liked it, Harry. …Listen, I know we didn’t talk about this while you were here, but… would you like to come back in the summer?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Harry says immediately, emphatically.

Sirius laughs. “Great! Look, I’ll talk to Dumbledore about it. He’s your legal magical guardian because of, uh, reasons, but I’m sure he’ll be accommodating. Your aunt and uncle wouldn’t mind?”

Harry shakes his head. “No way. They—they wouldn’t care. If I went to stay with you for a bit, I mean.”

“Right, okay.” Sirius is still grinning. “Great. Wonderful. That’s… great. Sorry, I’m just so pleased.”

“S’alright,” Harry says. “Me too.”

“I’m glad.”

Harry lets out a breath and listens to the crackling of the fire for a minute, then yawns.

“I’ll let you get to bed,” Sirius says. “You must be tired.”

“Mhmm,” Harry says. “‘Kay. Night, Sirius.”

“Good night, pup,” Sirius says softly, affectionately. “Sleep well.”

Harry nods, and then touches the opal on the mirror’s handle that ends the call. He _is_ exhausted, he realizes, and goes to get ready for bed. He hopes that he won’t have such terrible dreams again.

Unfortunately, his hopes are disappointed. The dreams he has that night aren’t _quite_ so bad, he doesn’t think, for at least he doesn’t remember them so vividly. But he wakes up in the morning with a feeling of deep anxiety and grief, and even knowing that the rest of his friends will be back today isn’t enough to totally banish the tightness he feels in the pit of his stomach.

Still, it is good to see Hermione again at the feast that night. She waves cheerfully at him from across the hall as the students filter in from off the train, and Harry waves back, then sets himself to looking for Blaise and Theo. They come in shortly after Hermione and settle down next to each other, across the table from Harry.

“Had a good break?” Harry asks them. For all their weird pureblood quirks and their politics, he’d missed them. The dorm was way too quiet when he was alone.

“Oh, yes,” Blaise says. “My mother and I went down to spend the break in the magical quarter of Rome. Very lovely, there, really, much warmer than here.”

“That sounds amazing,” Harry says. “What about you, Theo?”

Theo shrugs lazily. “Stayed home with my dad. He kept out of my way and I kept out of his, mostly. I got some reading done.”

“Cool,” Harry says. “Uh, that sounds nice too.”

“Not as nice as Italy, I know,” Theo says. “I’d rather have gone there too. What about you?”

“I got to visit my godfather on Boxing Day,” Harry explains proudly. “He lives in an apartment in London.”

“That’s nice,” Blaise says, and even sounds sincere about it. “Did you get nice gifts?”

“Yeah!” Harry says, and enthuses about some of his gifts—he doesn’t mention the Cloak or the mirror, but he does mention the book on Animagi which gets an interested look from both Blaise and Theo, and the Snitch, which he promises to show off later. He also chooses not to bring up the Mirror of Erised, because it’s gone now in any case. They don’t need to know.

* * *

Classes begin again, and Harry gets to spend some time with Hermione and Neville. Both seem relieved that Harry and Ron have made peace over the break, though they seem to have more secret conversations between the three of them than ever. Neville and Hermione seem to be arguing with Ron about something, and finally, about two weeks after the start of term, they snag Harry and pull him to a quiet corner of the library.

“Harry,” Hermione says, “we have something to tell you.”

“Finally,” Harry says, without thinking about it, then grimaces. “Sorry. You just haven’t been all that subtle about having a secret.”

She looks embarrassed, a bit, but plows onward. “Yes, well. We weren’t sure how you’d react.”

They then proceed to tell Harry all about their suspicions (or, well, confirmed knowledge) that some sort of artifact is being hidden in Hogwarts, and that someone is probably trying to steal it.

“We think it’s Snape!” Ron blurts, when they get to that part of the story.

Harry narrows his eyes, and Neville rushes to interject. “We don’t _know._ But, well, he’s kind of suspicious, don’t you think?”

“He’s my Head of House,” Harry says. “Just because he’s a Slytherin, and, well, sort of mean sometimes—”

“ _Sometimes_?” Ron says.

“Fine,” Harry says, frustrated. “He’s a massive prig at literally every moment. But that doesn’t mean he’s trying to steal some sort of _magic artifact_. He’s a teacher! He’s a _Head of House_! Do you even know what it is?”

All three Gryffindors shake their heads. “But we know it has something to do with Nicolas Flamel,” Hermione says. “Hagrid said something about him.”

“Who’s he?” Harry asks, feeling a tickle in his brain, as if he’s seen the name somewhere before. He can’t quite…

“We don’t know,” Hermione sighs. “We’ve been trying for ages to figure out who he is.”

“Hm,” Harry says, and wracks his brain. He’s sure he’s seen it— “Hold on,” he says, and shoves his hand into his bag. Just that morning, he’d eaten the last of the Chocolate Frogs that Professor Sprout had given him for Christmas, and the Famous Wix card had been a duplicate of one he already had: Professor Dumbledore, the first card he’d ever received, what felt like forever on the Hogwarts Express with Hermione. He’d stuffed the card into his bag after glancing at it, but now he pulls it out and, sure enough, he reads aloud, “Professor Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discover of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood, _and his work on alchemy with his partner Nicolas Flamel!_ ”

All of the Gryffindors gape at him, and then Hermione shrieks and throws herself at Harry in a hug. He catches her, shocked, and hugs back for lack of anything else to do. A moment later Madame Pince appears like a swooping bat out from behind one of the bookshelves, poised to kick them all out. When she sees Hermione, though, her expression goes from ‘fuming’ to just ‘irritated’ and she simply shushes them (nearly as loud as Hermione’s original squeal of joy) and then vanishes again. That puts a damper on Hermione’s celebration and seems to snap Neville and Ron out of their surprise.

“Oh, Harry, that’s amazing! We’ve been looking for him for _ages_!” she says, her voice slightly hushed now. “Oh, I know _exactly_ where I’ve seen him now! I took a book out of the library over the break for some light reading—hold on, it’s in my bag, I was going to return it today.” She rummages around in her rucksack, and then pulls out a massive volume which she begins flipping through. Harry sees Ron mouth to Neville ‘light reading???’ and Neville’s wide-eyed head shake, and can only agree with the sentiment. It takes her a moment, but finally Hermione finds the page and reads out, “ _There have been many reports of the Philosopher’s Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera-lover. Mr Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year_ —before you ask, the book hasn’t got a publication date in it, so I’ve no idea what year they mean; does the magical world even _have_ copyright?— _enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight)._ ”

“What’s the Philosopher’s Stone?” Harry asks, leaning over to peer at the page of the book. The text looks like it was hand-written, and the ornate letters seem like they’d be halfway illegible even right-way-up, never mind upside down.

“It’s a mythical substance produced by alchemy,” Neville says. “Most wixen have heard of it, but I never really thought it was real. Supposedly, it can turn any metal into gold, and… it’s an ingredient in the Elixir of Life. It makes you immortal.”

All of them share a look, all excitement leeching away.

“If Snape is trying to steal it,” Ron starts, but Harry’s glare cuts him off, and he tries again. “Fine. _Whoever_ wants it, that’s… they could do a lot with that. You could be _rich_.”

“You could live forever. Be _healthy_ forever,” Harry says, and Neville nods.

“So… what do we do?” Hermione says.

A look is shared between the Gryffindors.

Harry rolls his eyes. “Nothing.” They all turn scandalized expressions on him. “Look,” he says. “We know what it is—thanks, Neville, by the way—and that someone’s trying to steal it, and that’s _all_ we know. We don’t know who wants it or why. So let’s try to figure that out, and until then, let’s not get caught wandering about with giant books or talking in dark corners. It looks suspicious.”

“Alright,” Neville agrees. “No, you’re right, Harry. I mean… I don’t much like doing _nothing_ , but if it _is_ Snape—I’m not saying it is!—then we can’t exactly stop him by ourselves anyway. He’s a professor. So we need proof of who it is and what they’re doing.”

“That does sound good,” Hermione says, sounding both reluctant and relieved. “Thank you, Harry.”

He shrugs. “If I’ve learned anything in Slytherin, it’s that you’ve got to be _politic_ about stuff like this.”

“Politic?” Ron says. “What’d’you mean?”

“Like… careful,” Harry says. “You can’t just charge ahead, like… like a Gryffindor. Some things you need to think through, and take your time, and the best way to get ahead is to not step on anyone’s toes, even if it takes longer.”

“I’d like to step on Snape’s toes,” Ron says, and Harry just sighs and gives up. No point in arguing with him, and anyway, he’d like to step on Snape’s toes too.

“Let’s just get out of here,” Harry says. “We’re going to get in trouble with Madame Pince in a minute, and I need to go study for Professor McGonagall’s Transfiguration quiz.”

Both Ron and Neville groan at the reminder, but all three Gryffindors nod. “Thank you so much again, Harry,” Hermione whispers, and hugs him one more time before they file out of the corner of the library where they’d been hiding. “We’d never have found him without you.”

Harry shrugs. “Let me know if you find out anything else. I’ll keep an ear out in Slytherin.”

“Thanks, mate,” Neville says, and pats Harry’s shoulder. “Now, about that quiz…” He begins, and they go off together closer to the front of the library, to get a bit of studying done. Philosopher’s Stone aside, Harry still wants to pass his classes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so this was a bit of a short chapter, for which I apologize. After this I'll be going on a hiatus until after the holidays. I'm going to use the time to build up a bit more buffer and so on. If I manage something really spectacular in the next two weeks, I MIGHT update on the 30th, but otherwise don't expect an update until a ways into January, as I'll be out of town on the 6th and definitely won't be able to update then.
> 
> I'll still be available during the hiatus and replying to comments, as well as messages on Tumblr or mentions on Twitter (I'm @flippinnazguls). You're also welcome to ask in the comments for my Discord username if you're interesting in chatting with me there.
> 
> I have posted on my tumblr blog [a link to the playlist.](http://motherfuckingnazgul.tumblr.com/post/181101490387/umm-year-one-playlist) It currently only has a few songs, just for Year One; it'll get longer as the series goes on, but I didn't want to give any Thematic Spoilers. But check that out!


	8. Easter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back, one and all! My hiatus is ended, and here is a long-ish chapter to celebrate. Enjoy!

After the discovery of Nicolas Flamel, things go back to normal for Harry. He goes to class and sits with Blaise and Theo, or with Hermione when they share a block with the Gryffindors. He listens to conversations in the common room about professional Quidditch and magical music and politics, and the occasional griping about the blocked off third floor corridor. The lattermost was much more intense at the beginning of the year, when the upper years were still not used to having to avoid it, but even now it’s still an inconvenience for most people, especially on days when the staircases are acting up. More than one person has continued to be made late by having to go around unexpectedly or to wait for a staircase to shift back. No one seems to have made Harry’s own forbidden detour—no one mentions the three-headed dog.

His Gryffindor friends don’t get much more subtle about their conspiracy, to Harry’s exasperation. He doesn’t bother to warn them again about looking suspicious; most of the teachers in the school don’t really care about the Gryffindors, because surely Gryffindors would never be really _up to something_ (except the Weasley twins, but they know better than to plot in full view of anyone). Snape always has a dark look to spare for Harry or his friends, of course, but Snape always has a dark look to spare for just about anyone, whispered conversations notwithstanding. Harry just keeps away when they’re being obvious again, because he doesn’t want to get questioned about it by his friends in Slytherin. They don’t seem to have noticed too much what the Gryffindors may or may not be up to, but they would if Harry were suddenly part of the group all of the time and he kept his mouth too tightly shut.

Truthfully, he sort of has his own worries, so he’s content to leave the Gryffindors to their scheming. (They wouldn’t call it _scheming_ , he knows. They’d call it _planning_ , or something like that. But they’re still convinced that it’s Snape who wants to steal the Stone—they didn’t believe him and nothing he’s willing to tell them about how the Professor behaves with his own House is going to convince them. They think he’s evil. Harry just thinks he’s a prat; he doesn’t really seem the type to want the sort of riches and glory he’d maybe be able to get from the Stone. Even if he did, he’s a talented Potions Master and could, if his speech was believed, bottle his own fame and brew his own glory, no stolen artifact needed. Plus, he’s a Slytherin. There’s no way he’d be that obvious if he _was_ trying to steal it. Anyway: Harry thinks they’re being a bit pigheaded about the whole thing and isn’t really bothered to make the effort to convince them otherwise.)

When he has time to fret about anything at all in between keeping his grades up, he mostly frets about how Sirius’s efforts to persuade Dumbledore to let Harry stay with them are going. It would make him feel a lot better if he knew anything about the situation, but every time he tries to ask Sirius about why he’s not living with them in the first place, or what the ‘reasons’ are that Dumbledore is his guardian, or really anything at all, either in a letter or via the mirror, Sirius is evasive and awkward. He sort of gets the feeling that Sirius is… embarrassed, maybe, or ashamed, though Harry isn’t sure why.

A few weeks into term, Sirius asks him again during a conversation in the mirror if he’s sure he’d like to stay with them, if he’s _sure_ his aunt and uncle would be alright with it.

“Sirius,” Harry says, as sincerely as he can, “I’m _sure_ they’re not going to care. They, um, aren’t much bothered about what I do.”

“Well,” Sirius says. “Maybe I’ll write them just the same and make sure. They’re your guardians, after all…”

“No, no, don’t do that,” Harry says hurriedly. “Um, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon are sort of, uh, nervous? Nervous about magic, I guess. They wouldn’t like getting an owl, I don’t think.”

Sirius gives him a measured look through the mirror and Harry tries to pretend like he’s not panicking at the idea of what would happen if an owl showed up at Privet Drive. The response would surely be telling, and then who knows? On top of that, if Harry then had to go back to the Dursleys after all… Well. He’d rather avoid it all entirely.

“Alright,” Sirius says after a moment, and Harry tries not to sigh too obviously in relief. “Well, just to let you know, I’ve been exchanging letters with Dumbledore. He wanted me to double check with you, but now that I have I’m hopeful that we’ll get you for the summer!”

Harry smiles. “That’s great! Thank you, Sirius. I hope you can convince him.”

“I can convince people of anything,” Sirius says, and winks.

“No, you really can’t,” says Remus’s faint voice from somewhere in the background. The mirror can pick up other noise, but it always comes through muffled; Remus is clear enough that he must be nearby.

Sirius laughs. “You say that, but you agreed to live with me,” he says, and leaves out of the frame of the mirror for a moment, probably to kiss Remus’s cheek. When he leans back, he says, “Alright Harry, I’ll send Dumbledore another letter and we’ll see what he says. Hopefully we’ll know soon!”

“Yeah,” Harry says, smiling. The conversation moves on after that, but it leaves a warm glow—maybe it _is_ going to happen.

A few more weeks pass without much news, and then all of a sudden, just after January tips over to February, Harry receives an excited mirror call from Sirius, who tells him that while Dumbledore is still waffling about the summer, Harry will be allowed to come to London for the Easter holidays. Hogwarts gives its students a week-long break from classes in the week following Easter Sunday, which this year falls late, toward the end of April. That means there’s still quite a few weeks to wait, but then Harry will get to spend a _whole week_ with Sirius and Remus. They both seem to be looking forward to it just as much as Harry is, and he’s utterly exuberant about it, so much so that Hermione notices and asks what’s going on. He tells her, though he’s careful not to mention Remus—Sirius had warned him to be careful, because Remus is a ‘known werewolf’ and if anyone found out that they were having a child stay with them, they might get in trouble. Harry thinks that’s stupid, especially since Sirius reassured him that the full moon would be past already when Harry took the train into London on Saturday morning, but he supposes that if that’s the law, he can’t do much about it. Fortunately, he’s only mentioned Remus in passing so far, and hopes that everyone will forget about him if he doesn’t talk about him anymore.

Not much happens between February and April, which is both frustrating and a relief. Harry has the opportunity to focus on his studies, hang out with his friends (both Slytherin and Gryffindor), and learn more about the magical world. He spends a lot of time borrowing books from Hermione, who’s a good person to go to on the topic of books about things that wixen seem to think Harry already knows. He makes a point to read a few books on the history of ‘Dark Creature’ rights, including those for werewolves—it’s a bit horrifying, really, but he plows through. At least then he’ll know what he’s up against if someone ever finds out about his staying with Remus. Those books are always written in the context of the politics of the blood conflict in the British magical world, which he ends up learning more about than he’d really wanted to along the way to learning about magic in general. The truth is, though, that everything about magical politics seems to have been shaped by the blood conflict one way or another.

Some of it is going over his head as he reads, Harry knows; he’s not Hermione who seems to understand everything so long as it’s presented in letters on a page, and then remembers it (in more or less detail, as the Nicolas Flamel debacle proved) forever so that she can cross-reference effortlessly between every book she’s ever set eyes on. He knows he doesn’t grasp every subtlety. But he does come to understand that it’s going to be next to impossible to live in the magical world without making some sort of decision about where he stands on the blood conflict, about how he feels about his own status as a half-blood, and about whether he wants to do anything with his opinions. It doesn’t help that in his reading, he stumbles across the name Potter a few times—his family is old, rich, and politically powerful, or at least it was. The Blacks are even more commonly mentioned, usually in terms of how terrible they are. Or, worse, authors praise them for things that Harry thinks are terrible. Harry starts making notes on a scrap of parchment of questions he wants to ask Sirius over Easter about their families, blood, and politics; some of them he asks right away, in letters or over the mirror, because he needs an answer before he can keep reading. There’s no way he’s going to survive in Slytherin if he doesn’t get this stuff sorted out sooner rather than later; Blaise and Theo had tried to tell him as much but he hadn’t really understood it until now.

Between that research and keeping his grades up (he’s doing pretty well in Transfiguration, because it’s tough but McGonagall is rigorously fair; he’s also doing okay in Potions, because he actually gets the material for the most part but Snape is still giving him aggressive cold-shoulder and refuses to mark him higher than an Acceptable), time passes quickly and winter turns into spring. The snow vanishes from Hogwarts’s grounds and rooftops. Quidditch returns, and it becomes fun to watch the games again rather than Harry having to wonder about the potential for frostbite every time he steps outside. For that exact reason, he had continued to say no whenever the Gryffindors ask him if he’d like to go along to visit Hagrid on an afternoon or in the evening. He’s mostly friendly with all three of the Gryffindor trio, but he still doesn’t really know the groundskeeper and feels a little awkward about tagging along; between that and the weather he had plenty of excuses to stay in the castle and spend time with Blaise and Theo, study with Millicent Bulstrode (who still doesn’t talk to him, but tolerates his presence better than she seems to tolerate anyone else), or read by the fire in the Slytherin common room and listen to the snake portrait’s snarky commentary on the activities in the room.

He does sometimes wonder why no one ever talks to the or seems to acknowledge its commentary; it’s really very clever and also quite mean. He’d thought someone would have asked it to knock it off by now, or maybe they have and it didn’t listen. He’s not brave enough himself to reply to its hissed comments with his own opinions, especially since neither it (nor he in return) is usually very complimentary about the other Slytherins. Either way, he’d been very pleased when it stopped keeping its silence over the winter holidays. He’d had a few brief conversations with it then, and it had seemed very pleased in return to have someone talking to it. Now he holds his tongue, but it’s still talking when he’s around, and it’s _hilarious_. (It doesn’t think much of Draco Malfoy’s posturing in the evenings, which coincidentally is also Harry’s opinion of said stuck-up prat, who has at least started leaving Hermione alone… in Harry’s earshot, anyway.)

And then April arrives. The last few weeks before the break practically fly past, and the professors pile on a whole mess of homework for the days they have no class, and then Harry is packing to leave on the train. Blaise is going home again, but Theo is staying this time, having told the both of them that he’ll get none of the homework done if he goes. Blaise gives him a measured look that makes Harry think that they both have some context there that he doesn’t, but he doesn’t ask. They’ve been pretty respectful about not asking anything about the Dursleys or Harry’s home life; he offers the same in return.

He packs his whole trunk this time, rather than just a small bag. A few things he leaves in piles on his bed so that he doesn’t have to carry them about, but most of his things come with him. It’s not like he has much in the first place. He also runs up to the Owlery to fetch Hedwig. She’s gotten a pretty good workout, bringing letters now and then to Sirius; Sirius has his own owl, of course, but sometimes Harry has something to send before Sirius does so he can’t just send a reply, and sometimes Sirius’s owl, Ajax, gets into a mood and flies off without waiting for a reply. Harry loves her dearly and doesn’t really want to leave her at Hogwarts by herself for a whole week. Plus, then he’ll be able to send letters to Hermione and Theo.

The next morning, Harry files out to the train with the others who are leaving. Most aren’t; most students stay at Hogwarts to study, this close to end of term and exams. Harry would too, really, but he won’t pass up the opportunity to see Sirius, especially since this might be the only chance he has to convince Dumbledore that Sirius and Remus can take care of him just fine over the summer.

The train ride back to London seems interminable. Harry plans to find a compartment with Blaise, but the other boy has found a small group of second- and third-year Slytherins with whom he’s acquainted and is talking to them; he waves Harry off. So Harry finds an empty compartment and tries to read, but he can’t focus. He stares out the window, but that’s boring. He takes Hedwig out of her cage and strokes her for a while, but it’s full daylight and eventually she gets irritated enough with his having interrupted her sleep to nip his fingers until he puts her back and covers her cage with its shade. He goes back to reading, and forcing himself to focus on his bland history text finally puts him to sleep. He naps most of the rest of the way into the city. Harry wakes up about a half-hour before they arrive, giving him enough time to change out of his Hogwarts uniform and into a jumper and a pair of denims, which should stand up to the drizzly weather that had been predicted in the Blaise’s copy of the _Daily Prophet_ this morning. Wixen had that much going for them at least: predicting the weather was much easier when you had people around who could use actual magic to make sure it was accurate.

The train pulls into Platform 9 3/4 in the late afternoon, and Harry piles out with the other students who all are looking around as he is for their families, dragging his trunk and Hedwig’s cage with him. It only takes him a few minutes to spot Sirius on the platform, craning his neck to look over the heads of various parents and their children. When they make eye contact, Sirius waves and Harry pushes his way through the small crowd to get to him. It’s not nearly as busy as it had been on September 1st, fortunately, but the platform is still fairly narrow and there are plenty of people to navigate around with his unwieldy luggage, so it takes another minute to reach Sirius. Once he does, he’s immediately pulled into a tight hug by his exuberant godfather, who greets him with a loud, “Harry! How was the trip?”

Harry grins up at Sirius. “It was fine,” he says, “but better now that I’ve gotten here.”

“Excellent!” Sirius says, and takes Hedwig’s cage, leaving Harry to haul his trunk. They make their way through the crowd to one end of the platform, where there’s a pair of fireplaces and an attendant with a pot of Floo powder. “Alright to Floo home?”

“Sounds good,” Harry says. He doesn’t love Flooing, exactly, but he can do it.

“Alright. Keep tight hold of your trunk.” Sirius steps through the Floo first, and Harry follows a moment later, calling out, “The Doghouse!” clearly. The whirling sensation makes Harry dizzy, and he stumbles as he had the previous times as he comes out of the fireplace. Fortunately, Sirius is already through and steady on the other side, and he catches Harry; Remus, who is standing just to the side, rescues Harry’s trunk from the tangle and sets it against the wall before giving Harry a hug of his own.

“Good to see you,” Remus says, his voice sounding a bit hoarse.

Harry frowns up at his godfather’s partner, seeing that the other man is looking drawn and pale, with dark circles under his eyes. The scars on his face are inflamed, too. “Are you okay?” he asks. “You look sick.”

“I’m alright,” Remus says. “The full moon was just last night, so I’m rather tired. I apologize if I’m a bit peaky for the rest of the weekend; when Moony’s so close to the surface I can be a bit strange.”

Harry nods. “Okay,” he says. “Let me know if you want, um, tea or something?”

Remus laughs, still sounding a little rough but very happy, and he leans down to kiss Harry’s forehead. “Don’t you worry about me. Come on, let’s put your things away.”

They get Harry’s bag put away into the second bedroom, and then they all go out for an early supper. On the way back from the restaurant, they stop at a grocery store and Sirius lets Harry pick out a kind of cereal and a package of biscuits, and they pick up things like peaches and cheese scones and chicken, and Remus buys a package of herbs and talks about making his famous Italian chicken breast and a Greek salad, which sends Sirius running across the store back to the produce section to get a cucumber, because he’d forgotten. Remus winks at Harry and while he’s gone they snag a chocolate bar as a little treat. Sirius would fuss about it, Remus says, because chocolate makes him sneeze and always gets whiny when Remus buys it, calling it unnecessary temptation. Sirius comes back with the cucumber and they go to the cashier and pay, and then walk the rest of the way back to the apartment, subtly placed featherlight charms on their bags.

Harry goes to bed that evening feeling a little like he’s walking on air. He loves being with Sirius and Remus, laughing at their jokes and seeing the care in their eyes when they look at each other and at him. It’s a little like the feeling he got from the Mirror of Erised, but even better because this is _real_. They’re his family. He wants them to be his family forever.

The next few days are idyllic. On Sunday, all three of them spend the day lazing about: they watch some telly, and in the afternoon Sirius turns into his dog form, called Padfoot, and they go to the park, and then in the evening they play board games and Remus makes the promised chicken, which is delicious. On Monday, Remus calls in sick to his a job in a muggle shop, a casual thing where he says they don’t mind much if he has to miss days around the full moon. He’s still looking pale and says he’s not feeling entirely well, so he instead spends that day at home helping Harry to finish some of his schoolwork. Sirius takes the opportunity to go to Gringotts and deal with… something. He explains it very briefly to Harry, and Harry really only understands that it’s something to do with Sirius’s family money and business. He remembers reading about the Black wealth in some of those books he’d found at Hogwarts, and makes an addition to his list of questions about whether Sirius is the head of the family.

On Tuesday, Remus has mostly recovered his colour and goes to work in the morning. Sirius doesn’t work a normal job, so he stays with Harry, and they sleep in and then go see a matinee at the local movie theatre. They see a movie called _The Adventures of the Great Mouse Detective_ , about a mouse who is, for some reason, also a detective—it doesn’t make much sense, really, but Harry is a wizard so he’s seen stranger, and it is a great deal of fun.

That afternoon, after Harry’s done a bit of homework because Sirius said Remus would sigh at them if he’d done _nothing_ , Harry goes to get his list of questions. He finds Sirius sitting with the paper in the living room, reading, and he says, “Um, Sirius?”

Sirius looks up and folds away the _Daily Prophet_ , giving Harry all of his attention. “What’s up, pup?”

“I’ve got some, uh, some questions? Can… sorry.” Harry looks down at the folded scrap of parchment in his hands. “Is it okay? If we talk?”

“No problem,” Sirius says, his voice soft. “Come have a seat. What’s bothering you?”

“It’s not _bothering_ me,” Harry says quickly. “Just, well, there are some things that I don’t… really know. About the magical world, and my family, and… stuff. And I wanted to talk to you.”

“Well, ask away.” Sirius pats the couch next to himself, and Harry goes to take a seat.

After a deep breath, Harry unfolds the piece of parchment and considers the first question, then decides to start with something easier. “Um, I was curious about… what you do. I guess. Are you the head of your family?”

“Oh,” Sirius says. Then he smiles a bit wryly. “I should’ve guessed you’d want to talk politics, my Slytherin friend. Yes, I’m the current Black Patriarch, pretty much just for lack of other options.”

“I read some stuff…” Harry says, and trails off, unsure what to say.

“I’m sure there’s plenty out there about my family.” Sirius runs a hand over his face. “Can I… before we talk too much more, can I ask why you were reading about this stuff? It might help me know what you, uh, want to know. Also, I really wish you’d waited until Remus was here, he’s way better at these conversations. I’m awful at explaining complicated things.”

“Sorry,” says Harry. “We can wait until he’s home—”

“No, no,” Sirius says, “it’s fine. Come on, fill me in.”

“Okay.” Harry shrugs. “Well, I guess I just… wanted to know some more about the magical world in general. But a lot of the stuff I read didn’t make much sense—wixen write about stuff like politics as if everyone knows who all the people are that they’re talking about, and all the history of their families. I guess the magical world is pretty small, right?”

“Yeah,” Sirius says, nodding. “Alright. That makes sense. A lot of the names would’ve been unfamiliar to you, so you got into reading some of the histories, and probably none of _that_ made much sense without knowing the politics. So you’re sort of stuck, huh kid?”

“ _Exactly_ ,” Harry sighs, glad that Sirius gets it. “I just don’t know anything about… anything.”

“You don’t have to, you’re eleven. But I’ll help you if I can. What other questions have you got on that list?”

Harry lets out a relieved sigh, and looks back down at his list. “Um, so you’re the… Black Patriarch. But a lot of other pureblood families are related to the Blacks, right? And sort of… to each other in general?”

Sirius nods. “There’s been a lot of unfortunately close interbreeding amongst purebloods, especially in the last four or five generations. By now everyone’s everyone else’s cousin, pretty much. Even you and me, kid—your grandmother was my great-aunt, which makes us second cousins, on my mother’s side and your father’s, uh, obviously. Because your mum’s family are muggles.”

“Oh,” Harry says. “Um… are any of my mom’s family still alive?”

“Not as far as I know,” Sirius says, looking regretful. “Other than Petunia, anyway. Your grandparents were good people, but they passed a while back, your granddad just before your parents got married and your grandmum just after. Neither got to meet you, I’m sorry to say.”

Harry frowns, thinking of the people he’d seen in the background of the Mirror of Erised, those with red hair or his own same green eyes. His mum’s family… but they’re all gone now, except for Aunt Petunia, who he thinks barely counts as his family, really. “Okay,” he says after a moment. “If… if we’re related, and you’re my godfather—”

“Why aren’t I taking care of you?” Sirius interrupts, and runs his hand over his face again, then shakes his head. “I figured you’d ask eventually, though I was hoping it wouldn’t be so soon.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Harry says quietly. “It’s okay if you just, um… couldn’t look after me. Or didn’t want to.”

“Harry.” Sirius reaches across and takes Harry’s hand in his own, clasping it tightly, and then pulls him into a brief hug. When he lets go, he says, “It wasn’t that I— _we_ —didn’t want you. I promise it wasn’t that.”

“Okay.”

“You were only a year old when your parents were attacked, and we were all… young. And foolish. And there were a number of reasons that you coming into my custody would have been a bad idea.”

“Like what?”

Sirius sighs. “Well, for one, I was living with a werewolf. But we could’ve worked around that, especially with Dumbledore’s help. It was more… my family, Harry—they’re bad. They were bad. And in 1981, my mother and her father were both still alive. If you’d come into my care, they might have been able to sue for access to you even though I ran away from home and was disowned years ago. They’d have had some claim due to your blood relation, and they’d have been able to argue that because I had been disinherited, I had no means to take care of you. The courts and the Ministry are unfortunately very easily swayed by old blood, money, and power, and I just… I couldn’t take the risk.

“The only family money or connection I had was an inheritance from my uncle Alphard until just two years ago. When my grandfather Pollux, my mother’s father, finally died in 1990, my grandfather Arcturus reinstated me as his Heir. He was my paternal grandfather and the Patriarch, and for some reason decided that my rebellion didn’t disqualify me, even though it certainly had as far as my mother was concerned. We had… some conversations over the course of that year, and finally I decided to accept. He gave me as much of a refresher as he could about running the Black family and my responsibilities as Patriarch and as Lord Black, but his health was failing too, and he passed early last year, only about six months after he reinstated me. And quite abruptly I had to retire from my work as an Auror and become Lord Black.”

Sirius pauses and rubs his eyes. “I know you don’t have much of a grasp of the politics just yet, but… I’ll do what I can to teach you. The Potter family is old and influential as well, and you’ll need the training I received as a child and then in abbreviated form from Grandfather Arcturus.”

“Okay,” Harry says, feeling more than a little overwhelmed. “So… you let Dumbledore become my guardian because your mum wanted to hurt me? And he decided to place me with Aunt Petunia?”

“Essentially,” Sirius says. “There’s also… I’m sorry to say, but you deserve to know: the more selfish motivation was there too. I was twenty-one; the war I’d been fighting for years had abruptly ended and left all of society in an uproar; I was working a dangerous and all-consuming job as an Auror, and, at the time, a Hit Wizard; I’d just learned that my lover was not, in fact, an enemy spy; my best friend and his wife had been… damaged, and I was responsible for arranging to their care and healing if such was possible; and I had no idea how to take care of a baby. Fatherhood had been James’s dream, not mine. Between that and my family… when Dumbledore suggested that you might be sent to live with your aunt, who had a child of her own and was prepared for parenthood, in the safety and anonymity of the muggle world, it sounded like a good idea. It was never because I didn’t love you, or didn’t want to care for you. Just that I was overwhelmed. I didn’t think I _could_ become your father, Harry, or that doing so would be fair to either of us.”

Harry sits silently for a moment, processing that. It’s a lot to process. Then he nods, and sees Sirius let out a breath. “Okay,” Harry says. “It’s okay, Sirius. I get it.” He’s not sure he forgives his godfather, just yet. But he gets it, and he knows he _will_ forgive. Sirius can’t go back, can’t make a different choice; Sirius didn’t know that there’s no way that his family’s crazy politics could have been worse that what Harry had dealt with for the past ten years. He has no way to know that magic was all that had protected Harry, growing up; it had been his only companion, his only barrier between himself and the Dursleys’s cruelty, and Harry would have given _anything_ for even the slightest hint that he wasn’t a freak, or crazy, and that there were people out there that loved him. None of that is Sirius’s fault. Harry says that to himself in his head a few times, just to make sure he’ll remember it, and then offers Sirius a faint smile.

“Thank you, Harry,” Sirius says, and leans forward to hug Harry again. Harry hugs him back tightly and reminds himself that it really _is_ okay, because Sirius is here now. Sirius and Remus love him, and they’re doing everything they can to make sure Harry never has to go back to live with the Dursleys ever again.

“I love you,” Harry says into Sirius’s shoulder.

“Love you too, pup,” Sirius replies, hugging him even tighter, and then he lets go and says, “So, any more questions?”

“Yeah.” Harry looks down at his parchment, then launches into another question, this time about the Potter family’s history.

They talk for hours, until Remus gets home and beyond. Sirius actually knows a lot about magical family histories and politics, about the blood conflict, the history of the war with Voldemort, and a lot of other stuff that Harry’d been unsure about. Remus, too, is very much up to date on Ministry policies and politics of all kinds. Some of the stuff they say still goes over Harry’s head, but they explain patiently anything that he’s confused about or had read in a book and didn’t understand. It turns out that Remus is basically the only person in the world who can make magical government interesting; every book Harry had tried to read, even the ones Hermione recommended, had put him straight to sleep. But Remus does a good job to explaining the structure of the Ministry, the role of the Wizengamot, and how their policies affect daily life. It probably helps that he has his own situation as a werewolf to illustrate, because there are about a million regulations from every level of magical government that effect basically every aspect of _his_ life, and he can extrapolate from there to talk about how the law works for and against people like Harry, who are mostly more normal. The biggest question Harry had had after the ones Sirius had answered earlier was about what it meant that Dumbledore was his magical guardian, and between Remus and Sirius, they manage to clarify that somewhere around dinnertime.

Mostly, Harry learns, his situation is like that of a muggleborn, even though he isn’t. Someone not blood-related to him represents his interests in the magical world while he’s still a minor. That means that Dumbledore is in charge of representing him or hiring representation if he gets in trouble with the law, and negotiating for him on contract issues, and ensuring that he has a safe place to live. The default living situation for a muggleborn, Sirius says, would of course be with their own birth family, which is why there weren’t any problems from the Ministry when Sirius surrendered his rights to Harry and Dumbledore placed Harry with his muggle family; it’s not so far from the norm.

“What if they’re religious or just mean, or something?” Harry asks, when they come to this. “And the muggle family doesn’t treat their kid right?”

Sirius and Remus share a look, and then Remus says, in a careful tone that Harry doesn’t like very much, “The child’s magical guardian becomes responsible, in cases of abuse. Often those aren’t discovered until age eleven, unless the child displays truly spectacular accidental magic and they come to the attention of the Ministry, but when they are, the Ministry has a process for ensuring that the child is removed from their muggle home and placed in a magical one.”

“Okay,” Harry says. “Just curious. And, um, if I get to come to live with you, will Dumbledore stay my guardian?”

Sirius nods. “Probably. He could transfer the guardianship, but it would bring attention to me and to you that I don’t really want right now. Even setting aside Remus, my taking you in officially would read to the Wizengamot and to pureblood society at large as my declaring you as my Heir, which is a pretty big deal. Not to say that I wouldn’t _want_ you as my Heir, Harry, but it’s a decision that I’d rather you make for yourself, and once you’re a little older.”

Harry nods and shoves a bite of his dinner into his mouth, giving himself a moment to think about that. The Potters, Sirius had told him, were pretty powerful in their own right, and he’ll definitely have to do some managing and stuff once he’s of age. He won’t necessarily have a seat in the Wizengamot, though—a representative of the Potter family had often been chosen to sit in one of the appointed seats, but they didn’t hold one of the Ancient and Noble hereditary seats, even though they could have made a case for one when they’d come up empty here and there over the generations. The House of Black, however, is a whole other deal. He’s not really sure yet if he wants to deal with all of that. Anyway, Sirius had mentioned that he had a currently designated Heir, someone named Ted, who his cousin Andy was married to.

“That sounds good,” Harry says, once he’s done chewing. “I guess I’d like to think about that some more.”

“That’s totally fine,” Sirius says in a reassuring tone. “I’d rather you did, honestly. I didn’t get much choice, and if I had I’d have said no. Let me know if you have any more questions about it—more information is always better.”

Remus gives Sirius an approving look, and then turns to Harry and says, “You should feel free to come to me with any questions you have as well, Harry. I don’t know as much about the Black Lordship as Sirius, but I do know other things.”

“Mhm,” Harry says. “Yeah. Thanks, Remus, Sirius. I’ll give it some thought.”

And he does. That evening, and over the rest of the week. In between finishing his homework, he thinks about the Black Lordship, and taking over the business of the Potter family, and finding his place in the magical world. He has more questions and gets answers to them, and when Saturday night comes and Harry has to pack up to leave on the Hogwarts Express in the morning, he gets more assurances from both Sirius and Remus that they encourage him to continue reading, and to write to them if he gets confused, or to use the mirror, as usual, for any time that he wants to talk.

Harry gets back on the train on Sunday morning hoping desperately that Dumbledore will allow him to return over the summer. He wants to play fetch with Padfoot, and make potions in the kitchen with Sirius (he’d brewed a batch of Pepper-Up on Thursday evening and had actually been _nice_ and _patient_ while explaining what he was doing to Harry), and sit in the living room and read with Remus, and eat pancakes and learn to make Greek salad and sleep in the comfortable bed in the guest bedroom (in _his_ bedroom) with its soft sage green bedspread and only have to do chores like watering Remus’s ficus and helping dry the dishes after dinner. He _wants_ it. He’ll do anything for it; he’ll tell Dumbledore whatever he wants to hear. Anything not to have to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs, on his thin, stained little mattress, and not get to eat, and be bitten by Aunt Marge’s dog, or slapped by Aunt Petunia, or beaten up by Dudley and his gang, or called _freak_ ever again.

(That doesn’t mean, Harry thinks as he settles into a compartment on the train, once again by himself, that he’s going to volunteer to tell anyone about the Dursleys. Maybe he would be taken away from them if he told Dumbledore what they were like… but Sirius would feel bad. Sirius would feel guilty for having left him there. And Remus would be hurt too, because Remus is a good person, who cares when bad things happen to other people, even if this one wasn’t his fault. And it would certainly get out to the others at Hogwarts, and Harry doesn’t think he wants any of them to look at him and see a kid who was abused, like he’s some kind of victim. He’s not. It could have been much worse. But he knows that even so, Hermione would be sad… and he doesn’t really even want to think about what the Slytherins would think, even the okay ones, like Blaise and Theo. So: he’s not going to tell anyone _that_. Even if it means he has to go back. He spent ten years there; he can spend five and a half more summers.)

The Hogwarts Express arrives back late on Sunday afternoon, a few hours before dinner. Harry takes his trunk back down to the dorms, chatting on the way with Blaise, who he meets at the platform. Blaise had apparently had a very nice Easter break, but gets a bit shifty looking when Harry asks if he’d finished all his homework, then says, “Well, did _you_?”

“Of course,” says Harry, and smiles, hiding all traces of smugness in the expression. Blaise scowls at him anyway.

Once his things are put away and he’s greeted Theo, Harry goes looking for his Gryffindor friends. He finds them in the Great Hall, Ron frantically finishing a homework assignment while Neville and Hermione play a game with a set of muggle cards.

“Hey!” he says, as he approaches, and all of them look up.

Hermione’s eyes immediately go wide, and she springs up to give Harry a hug; once he’s free of the cloud of her hair he sees Ron and Neville grinning at him.

“Hullo, Harry,” Neville says. “Had a good Easter?”

“It was great,” Harry says.

“Did you finish all of your homework assignments?” Hermione demands immediately.

“Yup,” Harry says, and she beams at him.

“Oh good,” she says. “You said you were working on them in that letter you sent on Wednesday, but I do know that you boys get sidetracked…”

“Don’t worry about me,” Harry says, and pats her shoulder, then sits down next to Neville, across from Ron. Hermione resumes her seat across from Neville. “What about all of you? Had a good break?”

There’s a pause. All of the Gryffindors look at each other. Harry restrains a sigh.

“We’ve got something to tell you,” Neville says. “Um, in private. Come find us after dinner?”

Harry gives up on restraining the sigh, then says, “Alright. _Try_ not to loiter too obviously, or Blaise and Theo will ask me questions about what you’re up to.”

“I promise we’ll tell you everything,” Hermione says. “And we’ll be very subtle. Just meet us.”

“Alright,” Harry says, and sighs again. If they weren’t his friends, he thinks, these Gryffindors would be more trouble than they’re worth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sirius's reaction to chocolate is based on my own, and I thought it would be funny to make him allergic like I am because... dogs.
> 
> Also, I wrote part of the epistolary exchange between Dumbledore and Sirius that Sirius makes reference to in this chapter - would anyone like to see it? If so, I'll make a little "scraps" fic in the series for bits and pieces. Let me know in the comments!


	9. Norbert

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only two chapters left after this one! I'm really excited to get to the end of this book and see what everyone thinks of it in its entirety. Unfortunately, I haven't been making much progress on Year Two, because my thesis is due in a week and I'm dying, but I'm chipping away at it. In other news, I also just found out that I got into grad school! So RL is crazy but good right now.
> 
> I like this chapter a lot. You'll notice a few near-quotes from canon (mostly McGonagall, again; she's very quotable), but I had a lot of fun adapting canon events to reflect the AU. I hope everyone else likes it too!
> 
> Also, for those interested, there is now a "scraps" fic in the UMM series entitled _parva_ that contains an outtake from the last chapter. There won't be many of these outtakes, but they'll be there for those who want them!

After dinner, Harry finds the Gryffindors and they drag him off to a dusty, abandoned classroom on the second floor. He has to assume that this is their usual location for hiding and plotting, as there are a few chairs removed from the stack and one has been inexpertly Transfigured so that it has cushions, which look like they might still be made out of wood.

“Hagrid’s hatching a dragon in his hut,” Ron blurts out almost as soon as they’ve got the door shut, before Harry can even pull a chair down for himself.

Harry stares.

Ron, flushing red, follows up with, “Dragon breeding was outlawed by the Warlocks’ Convention of 1709.”

“Okay,” Harry says, very slowly. “Why are we talking about this in a dusty classroom instead of doing… something else?”

“If we tell anyone, Hagrid could be _fired_ ,” Hermione says. “He might even go to jail!”

“Dumbledore probably wouldn’t let that happen,” Harry says, because while he doesn’t know Hagrid especially well, the Gryffindors do love him, as do many other students, and there would probably be an outcry if the giant (well, half-giant) groundskeeper were hauled off out of the blue.

“Maybe not,” Hermione says, “but he’d still be in _trouble_. We’ve been trying to convince him to get rid of the dragon, but he refuses, and anyway, he can’t exactly let a fire-breathing dragon loose in the Forbidden Forest.”

_Fire-breathing_ , Harry thinks, and closes his eyes. “Hagrid lives in a wooden hut,” he says.

“We did try to point that out,” Hermione says. When Harry opens his eyes again, she has a helpless look on her face. “He’s really very stubborn about it.”

“Okay,” Harry says. “So what do we do?”

Neville and Ron look at each other, then they both shrug. “We’ve got to keep trying to convince him to get rid of it, I reckon,” Neville says. “Not much else _to_ do.”

“Great,” Harry says. “That’s… great.”

“Sorry, Harry,” Hermione says. “I wish it were better news. Oh, but we did figure out a bit more about what’s protecting the Stone. Hagrid said that no one knows how to get past Fluffy other than himself and Dumbledore.”

“That’s good,” Harry says, feeling a fresh wash of incredulity that Hagrid had named the ginormous three-headed dog _Fluffy_. When the Gryffindors had told him that Hagrid had called it that, he’d nearly laughed himself sick before he realized they were serious. “What else?”

“There are other protections,” Neville says. “From Professors Sprout, Flitwick, McGonagall, Dumbledore, Quirrell… and Snape.”

“Ha!” says Harry, and then rolls his eyes when all the Gryffindors frown at him. “I _told_ you it couldn’t be Snape trying to steal it. How would that make any sense, when he designed one of the protections?”

“Fine, fine,” Ron says. “Your Head of House is very not evil, definitely not out for fame and fortune…”

“He’s _not_ ,” Harry says. “Really.”

“We just wanted some proof, Harry,” Hermione says, soothing. “We’ll stop talking about it, we promise. We just need to figure out who else it _could_ be.”

Harry nods. “Well, we’ll keep an eye on it, right? Did you check on Fluffy over the hols?”

“I went,” Neville says, “and so did Ron.” Their small foursome had made a habit of stopping by the third-floor corridor and listening at Fluffy’s door, to make sure he was still there, awake and growling. So far, they’d never caught him sleeping, which was both reassuring and quite scary.

“I was _studying_ ,” Hermione says, sounding defensive. “Exams are coming up, you know!”

“Not _that_ soon,” Ron says. “Anyway, we weren’t saying you needed to, Hermione, just that we did.”

She huffs, but doesn’t argue, which Harry is grateful for, because he’s heard Hermione and Ron argue and it’s really never fun. “Anything else?” he asks, looking at his friends.

The three of them all shake their heads.

“Okay,” Harry says, and takes a deep breath. “Okay. So, we just… keep a watch. And see if any of us can come up with any idea of how to deal with Hagrid’s dragon.”

This time, a round of nods.

“Sounds good,” Neville says, and then yawns. “Alright, I’ve got to finish my Herbology assignment— _yes_ , Hermione, I left it for last, but only because I know that I can finish it quickly; it _is_ my best subject.”

She rolls her eyes. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

The boys all turn to give her an incredulous look, and her dark skin flushes slightly. “I wasn’t!”

“Right,” Harry says. “Well. I’d better get back to Slytherin before Blaise or Theo comes looking for me. See you later.”

His friends all bid him goodbye, and he slips out into the hall and makes his way down to the dungeons. He’s not entirely sure what they’re going to do about the dragon thing, but they’ll probably figure _something_ out. Hermione’s very smart, and Ron, for all that he’s kind of a moron about school, is very strategic, and Neville has a level enough head to keep his more high-strung Housemates on track. Harry’ll put some thought into it too, of course, but he has confidence in his friends.

For the next week, Harry is somewhat preoccupied with the problem, and his Gryffindor friends are noticeably distracted. Neville melts his cauldron in Potions on Friday, which he hasn’t done in several weeks; Snape’s rant is close to epic and would be pretty amazing, except for the part where it makes Neville look pale and ashamed, which really only makes Harry angry. That following Tuesday, however, the Gryffindors snag Harry just after lunch.

“The egg’s hatched!” Ron says.

“ _What_?” Harry demands. “We were going to make him get rid of it before it hatched!”

“We failed,” Hermione says. “But it’s out now—hatched during our morning break, we went down. You were in Herbology, sorry.”

“And then we had Transfiguration, so we couldn’t exactly tell you then,” Neville adds.

“No,” Harry says. He rubs his face. “So, what now?”

“Well,” Ron says, “there’s sort of another problem.”

“What?” Harry asks, but he has a sinking feeling: he’d noticed that Malfoy was missing in Herbology this morning, and he’d turned up for Transfiguration with a smug look about him.

“Er, Malfoy followed us down to Hagrid’s,” Ron says. “He saw the dragon.”

Harry curses, one of the colourful ones he’d learned from Sirius when his godfather had stubbed his toe during the holidays, and ignores the looks Ron and Neville give him and Hermione’s scolding “Language, Harry!”

“So, do we have to kill him?” Ron says, in a tone that suggests that he wouldn’t mind that at all.

“Probably,” Harry mutters, and then shakes his head. “No, that’d just be _more_ suspicious, we can’t do anything to him. It’d only make him tell everything to anyone who’d listen. Right now he’s got something over us, and he’ll love that.”

“You should talk to him,” Neville urges. “You know how Slytherins work. You might be able to convince him not to tell anyone.”

“Not likely,” Harry says. “Then he’d just know that _I_ know, too, and he’d make my life miserable. We _have_ to get rid of that dragon before he can tell anyone, that’s the only way. Get rid of the evidence and he won’t be able to prove anything; it’d be his word against ours _and_ Hagrid’s, and Hagrid is sort of a teacher—Malfoy’s stupid father might believe him, but Dumbledore will believe Hagrid, and I’m pretty sure Dumbledore runs half the magical world.”

“That’s about right,” Neville admits. “Malfoy’s dad is pretty big in politics, but Dumbledore’s bigger. They asked him to be Minister, y’know?”

Harry shakes his head, but he’s not surprised. He’s learned a lot about the magical government in the last week, and it turns out that Dumbledore has an awful lot of influence, at least if Sirius and Remus are to be believed.

“So, we talk to Hagrid,” Hermione says. “Harry, come with us: you can convince him. You’re a Slytherin, you can talk people into things.”

“I can _try_ ,” Harry says. “We’ll go tomorrow. Ron, you and I will skip History and go talk to Hagrid; Hermione and Neville, you stay in class to make Malfoy think we can’t be up to anything. You three do everything together, and everyone knows Ron hates Slytherins.”

The Gryffindors all nod. “Sure,” says Ron, who Harry notices does _not_ deny hating Slytherins. Whatever.

They all nod at one another, a solemn pact, and then part ways. The next day, Harry and Ron make good on their plan. Harry makes it a point to vanish into the library during Slytherin’s free block, so that no one is surprised that he’s skipping History; all the better, because it gives him time to finish the Charms essay that’s due first thing tomorrow. Once the period ends, Harry waits until people will have started their next class, and then goes to meet Ron in the Entrance Hall. They troop down to Hagrid’s hut together and knock on the door.

Hagrid opens the door just a crack at first, but when he sees it’s Ron, he lets them both in, with an only slightly narrow look for Harry. The inside of the hut is absolutely boiling and quite dark, the windows all covered with curtains; the air smells like alcohol and blood. Harry immediately hates it, but he scrunches his nose and tries not to breathe too deep. Lying on the stones in front of the fireplace, too, is the dragon: it’s black and scaly and about the size of Aunt Marge’s dog, Ripper. Harry hates that, too, and hopes it doesn’t bite him.

“Good to see you, Ron,” Hagrid says. “And who’s yer friend?”

“This is Harry,” Ron says. “Harry Potter. He’s friends with me, Neville, and Hermione—he’s okay, for a Slytherin.”

“Gee, thanks,” mutters Harry. Then he says, “Nice to meet you properly, Hagrid.”

“You too,” Hagrid says, softening a little. “Come to see Norbert, ‘ave you?”

“Yup,” says Ron, and goes over to peer at Norbert, who seems, fortunately, to be sleeping. “He’s grown! Hagrid, he’s only a day old, how has he _already_ grown?”

“Book says they grow quick at the start,” Hagrid says, patting a volume that’s sitting on his table. “S’alright, Ron, don’t worry. I’m takin’ good care of him.”

“That’s what we’re here to talk about,” Harry says, a little hesitant. He doesn’t _know_ Hagrid like the others do, but they asked him to try. “Hagrid, we really think you should let Norbert go.”

“Let him _go_?” Hagrid says. “No way, can’t do that—he’s just a baby! He’d die!”

Harry looks at the sleeping baby dragon, and has to agree: it is just a baby. But somehow, he doesn’t think it’d die. “We know, Hagrid. But we have to get rid of it somehow. Malfoy knows about Norbert, and he’ll get you in quite a lot of trouble if he tells anyone and Norbert’s still here.”

“Well, that’s just not gonna happen,” Hagrid says. “Norbert knows ‘is mummy now, and he loves me. It’ll all be fine. I’ll raise ‘im up and we’ll see about keeping ‘im in the Forest once he’s grown. He’d get along well with Aragog, I think.” This last sentence is a mumble, and Harry abruptly does not want to know. He exchanges a look with Ron, who seems to share the same lack of curiosity.

“Hagrid,” Ron starts, but he doesn’t get very far.

Hagrid holds up one massive hand and cuts Ron off, saying, “No, no, I’m not gonna hear any more out of you two. Norbert needs me. Now, come on, where’re Neville and Hermione?”

“Er,” says Ron, and before Harry can stop him he admits, “in History of Magic.”

Hagrid gives them both a stern look. “So yer skippin’ class to be here?”

“Yeah,” Harry says. “Sorry.”

“S’fine, I know yer just concerned,” Hagrid says. “Just don’t do it again. You two are bright; you’ve gotta be better about your schoolin’ than that. Don’t wanna grow up to be a dropout like me.”

“Sorry, Hagrid,” Ron says, a bit shamefaced. “We won’t. We just wanted to make sure Malfoy couldn’t follow us again.”

“You leave that twerp to me,” Hagrid advises. “Don’t worry yourselves about me, either; I can take care of myself.”

Harry looks at the cuts and reddened burns on Hagrid’s hands, and the smell of scorched wood and hair in the room layered under the blood-smell, and sort of doubts that. But if he knows anything, it’s that adults don’t listen to kids about things like this no matter _how_ much sense they’re making. Instead he looks at Ron and says, “We’d probably better get back soon, before anyone can miss us too much.”

“Alright,” Ron says, coming over to stand by Harry. He waves up at Hagrid and says, “Good to see you, Hagrid. Don’t let Norbert burn your house down before we can visit again.”

“No problem,” Hagrid says, and bends a bit to pat Ron’s shoulder, then ushers the both of them out of his door.

Harry and Ron stand blinking in the sunlight for a moment, and then Harry says, “Well, that could’ve gone better.”

“Yup,” says Ron. “Let’s go to the library, I need to finish that Charms essay.”

“Ugh. Me too.”

So they go back to the library, then to the Great Hall for dinner. Harry doesn’t go to meet his Gryffindor friends after dinner, since he reckons Ron will fill Hermione and Neville in on their lack of progress. Instead he goes back to his own dorm and he keeps an eye on Malfoy, who seems content to lounge about in the common room looking about as smug as usual. If he’s telling his little gang anything about Hagrid and Norbert, he’s doing it somewhere where Harry can’t see, which seems out of character. Malfoy likes to brag in public, where as many people as possible can see him doing it, and he’d especially relish making Harry watch him get Harry’s friends in trouble. So Malfoy’s waiting.

Malfoy continues to wait for the rest of the week, which is both a relief and highly aggravating. Harry and all of the Gryffindors continue to visit Hagrid whenever possible, at least once every day; Harry volunteers to go in the evenings, when there’s less going on to stop people from noticing their frequent visits. Vanishing for an hour is easy to explain, of course, because as they draw closer to exams everyone’s always off studying somewhere, but it’s not like it’s hard to see plainly who’s walking down to Hagrid’s hut; the route is very exposed. The Gryffindors haven’t figured out, he knows, how he’s going undetected as he sneaks across Hogwarts’s grounds to Hagrid’s hut when it’s his turn to visit, but of course he’s using the Invisibility Cloak. He’s been using it for the occasional after-curfew jaunt to explore parts of the castle and to check on Fluffy, but it’s kind of neat, he thinks, to use it to walk unseen when there are people around. He gets good at walking quietly, which is in his opinion a good thing to be good at.

At the end of the week, they have another clandestine meeting in their abandoned classroom.

“Norbert has _tripled_ in size,” says Neville, who visited briefly today during a free block. “Hagrid’s not going to be able to keep him in his hut much longer. But I asked again about giving him away, and he said no again.”

“We’ve got to figure something else out,” Harry says, stalwart. “There _must_ be a solution. Where do dragons even live? It’s not like they’re just… out there in the wild, eating sheep or something, are they?”

Ron shakes his head. “No, of course not, that’d be stupid. There’s… preserves. …Huh.”

“Huh?” says Hermione.

“I’ve had a thought,” says Ron. “Y’see, my brother Charlie, he works at a dragon preserve in Romania. S’how I know so much about dragon breeding regulations; my mum used to make him recite them whenever he started talking about wanting one as a pet again.”

“Do you think he could take Norbert?” Hermione asks eagerly.

“Maybe,” Ron says. “I’ll send him a letter. He’ll have ideas, at least.”

Harry and Neville heave simultaneous sighs of relief.

“That’s great, Ron,” Neville says. “Great idea.”

“Thanks,” Ron says, looking pleased. “Well, I’d better get to the dorm, then—I should write that letter right away.”

“Yeah,” Harry says. “I should get back to the dorm before Blaise and Theo notice I’m gone.”

“You always seem so worried about them,” Hermione says. “Are they really your friends?”

Harry shrugs. “They’re just nosy. It’s pretty normal for Slytherins to want to know what everyone’s up to. I mean, I’d get suspicious too, if they were disappearing off every few days to go who knows where, and sneaking around and stuff.”

Ron gives him a look like he’s mad. “That’s not exactly _friendly_ , mate.”

“It’s Slytherin,” Harry says, and shrugs again.

* * *

Another week passes. They continue to check up on Hagrid and Norbert, and Harry continues to keep an eye on Malfoy. Not much happens.

Then, on Thursday evening, the Gryffindors, Ron conspicuously absent, catch Harry on his way out of the Great Hall after lunch. Literally: Hermione snags his hand and physically tows her after him until he figures out what’s happening and starts keeping up with her walking pace on his own. They make it all the way to their abandoned classroom (fortunately, no one is in the hall to see them slip inside the room) before anyone tells him what’s going on.

“Ron got bit by Norbert,” Hermione says. “And his hand swelled up terribly, and turned green, so we reckoned he’d better go to Madame Pomfrey.”

“She might figure it out,” Harry says, frowning.

“He said he’d claim it was a dog,” Hermione says. Harry doesn’t think Madame Pomfrey is that stupid, but he doesn’t have any better ideas, so. “Anyway, Norbert will probably be gone by the time she can investigate. We also heard back from Charlie last night.”

“We said he and some friends could come on Saturday night,” Neville says, picking up the thread. “We just need a way to get Norbert to the top of the Astronomy Tower without getting caught.”

“And that’s going to be difficult,” Hermione says. “Nothing I’ve read suggested that there were reliable charms for true invisibility, and Disillusionment doesn’t work if someone’s actually looking for you, really. Of course, it’s also a very advanced charm, and I’m not sure I could learn it in time.”

Harry looks between Neville and Hermione, sees their frustration and their worry, and takes a moment to weigh his options. Finally he thinks: these are his friends. If he can’t trust them, he can’t trust anyone. So he says, “I’ve got something that could work.”

Both of them look at him, astonished.

“It’s an Invisibility Cloak,” Harry explains. “It belonged to my father; someone gave it to me for Christmas. I don’t think it would be big enough for all of us, but it would cover two of us and Norbert, if we were careful.”

“That’s amazing!” Hermione exclaims, even as Neville beams.

“Really, Harry, that’s brilliant,” Neville says. Then he looks at Hermione and says, “I’ll go, Hermione. I know you don’t like to chance getting caught breaking the rules, but if I get caught it won’t be so bad.”

Hermione looks conflicted, but then nods. “If Harry’s alright with that,” she says.

Harry nods. “That’s fine. Listen—don’t tell Ron about the Cloak, please? I don’t want very many people to know about it.”

“It’s a better tool if it’s a secret,” Neville says, nodding. When Hermione gives him a surprised look, he shrugs. “My grandmother taught me how to think strategically, and even if I’m not always much good at it, I remember the lessons. Some stuff was simple enough, like not showing anyone what you’ve got in your pockets until you need to, because then it’s a surprise. I’m not much good at that, either, but I understand the theory at least.”

Harry gives Neville a wry look, and says, “Was your grandmother a Slytherin?”

Neville shakes his head. “Ravenclaw. But… I’m the Boy-Who-Lived. There’re still folks out there who don’t much like me for being responsible—” he makes airquotes around ‘responsible’“—for destroying You-Know-Who. She wanted me to be prepared, so she tried to make sure I knew everything I could growing up about people _and_ about magic. I don’t think I really live up to people’s expectations, or hers, but she tried.”

“Well, okay,” Hermione says, still sounding a little dubious. “I’ll come up with something else to tell Ron if he asks.”

“Thanks,” says Harry. “I know it’s, y’know, Slytherin of me.”

“You’re a Slytherin,” Neville says simply. “S’alright, Harry.”

“Thanks, Neville,” Harry says, suddenly very grateful for the silent bastion of support that Neville is. They’ve never really gotten to talk and get to know one another like Harry has with Ron and with Hermione, but Neville accepted him easily from the start, was willing to take a chance on him, and though he’s prone to Gryffindor bluntness, he’s level-headed and kind. He defers to Ron and Hermione too much, maybe, because they’re strong personalities and he’s quieter, but he’s a good person. A good friend.

Harry clears his throat, and says, “I’ll come meet you on Saturday night, then. I’ll be waiting outside your portrait-hole just after curfew.”

“You know where it is?” Neville says.

“Yeah,” Harry says. “Sirius mentioned it a few times—the Fat Lady, right?”

Neville nods, and with their plan made, they go their separate ways. That evening, however, Harry notices a distinct shift in Malfoy’s smugness, namely that it’s become outright glee. He catches Malfoy smirking at him several times, and just before bed, Malfoy sweeps by with Crabbe and Goyle flanking him and whispers, sounding joyful, that he’d better say goodbye to his Gryffindor friends tomorrow, because on Saturday they were going to be expelled. Harry has no chance to ask Malfoy what the bloody hell he’s talking about, and he lays in bed for hours that night, tossing and turning. How could Malfoy have found out? What does he know, or think he knows? They were impossible questions; he’d have to wait until the morning to ask Hermione and Neville if they had any clue.

Sure enough, at breakfast the next day Harry drops briefly by the Gryffindor table to say good morning, and Hermione gives him a whispered update: Malfoy had gotten a look at Charlie’s letter to Ron, and knows where and when they’re to meet Charlie. He’s sure to try to trap them.

Harry grits his teeth and resists cursing. Draco Malfoy apparently exists to make his life difficult, but there’s not much to be done about it now; there’s no time to send Charlie another letter and put him off. Owl post to Romania takes at least a few days, if the turnaround on Ron’s first letter says anything at all. They’ll have to go through with the plan and hope that Malfoy doesn’t manage to catch them in the act.

On Saturday, Harry tries not to act too obviously antsy. He stays with Blaise and Theo rather than going to meet the Gryffindors, which isn’t so rare as to raise flags. They’re getting close enough to exams that it makes perfect sense to sit around in the common room reviewing, and Harry forces himself to focus on helping Theo with Transfiguration. He himself has been getting some tutoring from Sirius, who’s pretty good with it, though he’s said that Harry’s dad had been even better, and his mum a whizz with Charms. Harry’s own best subject is definitely Defence Against the Dark Arts; even though Quirrell mostly teaches theory even in the so-called ‘practical’ blocks, it all makes sense to Harry in a way that some other magic doesn’t, necessarily. Which sorts of spells can cancel which, the difference between a general counterspell and a specific one—those things just click in his brain. And while memorizing magical creatures like hags and fire crabs is more challenging, he doesn’t struggle to remember how to deal with each of them like he does with the precise incantations and wand movements needed for Transfiguration or the mind-bending focus exercises that Professor Flitwick makes them do to improve the strength and swiftness of their charms. He also loves the few practical exercises that they’ve done in class, mostly things like learning to throw sparks from their wands in an emergency and the Knockback Jinx. The latter had been a fun class: Quirrell had put Cushioning Charms on the walls and the floor and they’d gotten to use _Flipendo_ to toss one another around the room for the full hour. It had been a bit like what Harry imagines being in a bounce house to be like.

Today, Harry, Blaise, and Theo spend the whole time bent over their Transfiguration texts and then over Astronomy, because star charts give all of them headaches and none of them are particularly excited to write that exams. It’s all rote memorization, and it’s _hard_. Blaise keeps muttering about doing a little every day, clearly advice he’s parroting from someone else. After lunch, around 2 o’clock, one of the upper years leans over the back of Harry’s armchair and tells them that they’ve misidentified the North Star, and they all groan at the thought of starting all over. Then Theo double checks the text and it turns out the upper year is pulling their collective leg, and it’s only Harry’s low-voiced promise to consult his godfather for a prank idea that stops his friends from storming over to the older boy and starting something. Truthfully, he’s already got an idea of his own, and he hopes the upper year likes ink spots all over his homework, because Harry is going to hex all of his quills so that they spit ink everywhere when he tries to use them. He just needs to ask Sirius how to do it.

Then dinner comes, and after dinner Harry bides his time until Blaise and Theo have retired to their dorm. He tells them he’s going to read in the common room for a while longer, and hopes that if they do notice that he doesn’t return until well after curfew, they’ll assume he dozed off in front of the fire. Not long after, Harry finds himself the only person left in the common room, with only a few minutes until curfew, and he hurriedly pulls the Invisibility Cloak over himself, ignoring the snake portrait’s snide comments about _someone being naughty, at least he’s also clever_ and slips out the door. He arrives at the Fat Lady’s portrait just after the cloak has chimed 11, and a minute after that, Neville slips out. Harry pulls the Cloak’s hood off and hisses his friend’s name, and Neville jumps, then scurries over.

“This is brilliant,” he tells Harry as he slips under the Cloak. “You’ve saved us with this one, Harry.”

“I’m just worried we’re still going to get caught by Malfoy,” Harry whispers back. “He never came back to the common room; he’s probably hiding somewhere until after curfew to try to catch us.”

Neville nods, and then the two of them fall silent as they make their way down through the halls. They have to pause in the entrance hall for a few minutes and wait for Peeves to get bored of bouncing a tennis ball against the wall, and then rush down to Hagrid’s, now clear of any listening ears, though they keep the Cloak over them.

When they arrive, they find that Hagrid has Norbert packed and ready in a large crate. Hagrid is predictably overwrought but sees them off with a few final sniffles, leaving them to the ordeal of getting Norbert across the grounds and through the castle by themselves. Fortunately, they’ve now had enough practice with the Levitation Charm that both of them are well-capable of maintaining it for several long minutes at a time, and take turns concentrating on the Charm as the other guides the hovering crate and ensures that the Cloak doesn’t slip off. It barely covers the both of them and Norbert, and every time the baby dragon shifts and causes the crate to creak or rips another limb off of his teddy bear, they both stop, cringing, waiting for a professor to come around a corner and discover them. But it never happens.

Then, just as they reach the foot of the Astronomy Tower, a movement up ahead causes them both to startle. Harry, who’s holding the Charm on the crate, loses concentration; he and Neville are barely able to catch it before it slams to the ground.

A light flickers on and they freeze. Ahead of them are two figures: Professor McGonagall, in a tartan dressing-gown and a hairnet, has Draco Malfoy by the ear.

“Detention!” she shouts. “And twenty points from Slytherin! Walking about in the middle of the night without a care, how _dare_ you—”

“You don’t understand!” Malfoy cries in return. “Neville Longbottom’s coming, and he’s got a dragon!”

Harry and Neville trade a panicked look, but McGonagall scoffs and says, “What utter rubbish! I shall be having a word with Professor Snape about you, Mister Malfoy. Now _get back to the dungeons_.”

She escorts him away, and both Harry and Neville let out a breath. They don’t dare risk their voices to recast the Levitation Charm, and so are stuck to haul the crate up the stairs to the top of the tower by hand. It doesn’t feel nearly so heavy, at least, with Malfoy’s fate making them both of them light as air themselves. Harry does end up taking the brunt of the weight, being significantly stronger than Neville, but eventually they make it out into the clear night air and throw off the Cloak to take deep, fresh breaths.

“That shows Malfoy!” Neville cheers. “I could sing!”

“Don’t,” Harry replies dryly, but laughs all the same.

They wait another ten minutes, chuckling about Malfoy, and then four broomsticks come swooping out of the sky. Ron’s brother isn’t among them, but his friends are a cheery lot, and swiftly they hitch Norbert in his crate up to a sort of harness between their brooms, then swiftly lift off into the night sky and are, a moment later, nothing but shadows against the blackness… and then gone entirely.

“Phew,” says Neville, and Harry grins at him. Feeling quite a bit lighter with Norbert now off their hands, they nearly skip back down the tower.

They step out of the staircase into the corridor, and from their left, a voice says, “Well, well. We _are_ in trouble.”

Filch looms out of the darkness, and Harry’s heart drops to his toes. They’d left the Cloak at the top of the tower… and they’d been so _close_.

But close isn’t good enough. Filch leads them down to McGonagall’s office, where she’s writing some sort of note by candlelight at her desk; the look on her face when she looks up and sees them at Filch’s knock is nearly terrifying. Harry just hopes Blaise and Theo will already be asleep so that he can pack his bags tonight without their noticing. He can’t think of a single excuse or cover story that would stand up to the fact that they’re out of bed and were up the Astronomy Tower, which is out of bounds even in the daytime. How could he have been so stupid as to just leave his father’s Cloak lying on the ground? As his mind whirls, Filch explains where and how he found them, and then there is a long silence while McGonagall seems to think on that.

“I would never have believed it of either of you,” Professor McGonagall says, rising to place her hands on her desk and lean toward them. “It is one o’clock in the morning! And up the Astronomy Tower, too. _Explain yourselves_.”

Harry and Neville look at one another, but both of them have been struck mute by shock and fear. Neville looks down at his slippers; Harry stares past Professor McGonagall’s shoulder.

“I think I have a good idea of what’s going on,” says Professor McGonagall. “It doesn’t take a genius to work it out. You fed Draco Malfoy some cock and bull story about a dragon, trying to get him in trouble. Well, no worries, you have succeeded: I caught him not two hours ago.”

Harry is not remotely interested in contradicting that story. It’s better than anything he could have come up with. Neville seems to agree, and they keep silent.

“I’m disgusted!” Professor McGonagall continues. “Three students out of bed in one night! Mr. Longbottom, I thought much better of you; I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this. As for you, Mr. Potter, much as I appreciate your spirit of inter-House cooperation, playing such a cruel trick on your own Housemate shows a shameful disloyalty—and that is putting aside your own misbehaviour! I am aware of your stay with your godfather over Easter, and if this is the influence he has on you, I’ve half a mind to tell Dumbledore not to allow any further such visits.”

Harry clenches his teeth against an instinctive retort. That’s not _fair,_ he wants to cry, like a baby who doesn’t know that adults don’t care about what is and isn’t fair. He’s learned long ago that when they’re this mad, he might as well just let them do what they want. He’s not going to be able to stop her from punishing him, and complaining will only make it worse.

“You two will be receiving detention,” she says. “And fifty points _each_ from your respective Houses.”

“ _Fifty_?” Neville gasps, his muteness lifted. Were it not for Harry’s being in Slytherin and his and Malfoy’s own losses, that would have lost Gryffindor their current lead.

“Fifty,” Professor McGonagall says sternly. “I should hope you both now understand the seriousness of this infraction. Mr. Potter, I shall also be bringing up your name to Professor Snape, and I am sure he too will have words for you.”

_They’ll be the first he’s said to me all term_ , Harry thinks and doesn’t say. At least now Snape will be forced to stop ignoring him.


	10. The Forbidden Forest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second-to-last chapter! Further notes at the bottom about the state of Book Two, etc.

The morning after bidding goodbye to Norbert, Harry gets up just after dawn and slips out of the dorms. He waves at Gemma, who’s sitting in the common room with a book and gives him a very confused look as he goes past. She seems about to stop him and ask what he’s up to, but before she has the opportunity he slips out the door and is gone, out into the hallways. Once he’s free of the common room, he runs most of the way to the foot of the Astronomy Tower and then up the stairs, up to the very top. He can’t afford to get caught out of bounds _again_ , but fortunately it’s a moment’s work to spot his Invisibility Cloak lying on the ground in a sprawl of silvery fabric. He sighs in relief, glad that Filch hadn’t come up here to see what he and Neville had been up to and confiscated it. He swings the fabric over his shoulders and makes his way back through the halls, taking it off just before he reaches the Slytherin common room, and this time tries to ignore Gemma, who seems to have put her book away and has the air of someone waiting.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t get away so easily. “What’re you up to, Harry?” she asks, peering at the bundle of fabric he has tucked under his arm. “What’s that?”

Harry shrugs as nonchalantly as he’s capable of; he’d sort of been hoping she’d be gone when he got back. “Just had to go fetch something,” he says.

“At half five in the morning?”

“What better time?” he says, and then walks past and back into the boys’ dorm hallway before she can keep him any longer.

“You’re a sneak, Potter!” she calls after him, her voice lowered somewhat to avoid waking anyone.

 _I’m a Slytherin_ , Harry thinks, and slips back into his dorm. Blaise and Theo are still asleep, and he slides into his bed to get another hour of sleep before breakfast. He’s not really looking forward to the day, and wants to be well-rested for when his Housemates realize that he’s lost them 50 points. Even Malfoy’s 20 will seem like nothing in comparison.

Sure enough, word starts getting around within hours of the start of the day. And, of course, Harry gets a note from Snape at breakfast, demanding that he show his face in his Head of House’s office that evening after dinner ends. He shoves the note into his pocket before anyone else can see it and goes to hide in his dorm for the rest of the day, reading. It’s Sunday, so there’s not even class to impede the spread of gossip; Theo and Blaise burst into the dorm just before lunch.

“Is it true?” Theo demands.

Harry looks up from his book, the slim volume on Animagi that Sirius had given him at Christmas, then closes it and tucks it away. “Is what true?”

“Did you really try to get caught trying to get Malfoy into trouble? Sneaking around at night with Neville Longbottom of all people?” Theo says.

“No,” Harry says. “I wasn’t trying to get Malfoy into trouble; he was trying to get _us_ into trouble and got himself caught by McGonagall like an idiot.”

“But you _were_ out after curfew with Longbottom,” Blaise says.

“Yeah,” Harry says. No point in denying it, though he’s sort of curious how the rumour mill got so many details. Maybe Malfoy blabbed some of it, and the rest probably came from the Gryffindors, since Neville got in trouble too and Harry had seen his friend getting a few dirty looks at breakfast.

“ _Why_?” Theo says.

“He’s my friend.” Harry looks at Theo for a moment, then at Blaise. “There’s going to be politics, isn’t there?”

“Yup,” Blaise says, popping his ‘p’. “You’re a mystery, Harry. You spend half your time with Gryffindors, but you’re a Slytherin. Everyone knows you and Malfoy hate each other, but until now you’ve only started something with him once and haven’t tried to do anything to him secretly. Before now, except for that one time, you’ve never really gotten into trouble, and you keep your head down, but you also get pretty good grades so you could stand out if you ever mentioned it; people know you’re near the top of the year overall, if not in each subject individually. And Professor Snape never even looks at you, for some reason! What’s your deal?”

“I don’t have a deal.”

“You do, actually,” Theo says. “You just keep your hand so close to your chest that you might as well not be playing.”

“I’m _not_ ,” Harry insists. “I don’t really want to play Slytherin’s weird politics game. I hang out with Gryffindors because they’re my friends, and I hate Malfoy because he says nasty things about my mum and about my friends, and I’m not going to _not_ get good grades just because you think it’s weird, and I have no idea what Snape’s problem is. I act strange by your reckoning because I barely know anything about how wixen are supposed to do things—I was raised by muggles!”

“Yeah, sure,” Theo says, “but we’ve all seen you reading books about magical politics and government, and you’re the godson of the current Lord Black, and you spent Easter with him, which means you can’t be completely ignorant and you’re not unimportant. You might be a halfblood, but the Potters used to be pretty powerful. People want to know which way you’re going to jump, and as of today it looks like you’re jumping to the side of the lions.”

Harry sighs. “There’s no sides. I like being a Slytherin, and I like you two and Bulstrode just fine, and Greengrass and Davies when they’re not looking down their noses, and I think Gemma’s pretty cool. I just happened to become friends with Hermione on the train, and I didn’t think it made sense to stop being friends with her just because of our Houses, especially when she had no other friends and neither did I, because the two of you are—don’t try to deny it—only sort of my friends; you’re both too weird and pureblood and political to actually just _be friends_ with me. And when she got close with Ron and Neville, I ended up spending time with them too. It wasn’t some sort of _declaration_ about my _side_. It’s not always about politics.”

They trade one of those speaking looks that he hates, and then Theo flops on his bed and groans. To the ceiling, he says, “Just because you’re not trying to be political doesn’t mean there aren’t _political implications_ , Harry.”

“We’re eleven!” Harry cries, fed up. “This is stupid! Politics are for _adults_ ; can’t we leave it to them?”

“Not when half of Slytherin is someone’s heir,” Blaise says. “Hogwarts is a place to make or break alliances, to learn your enemies, and to study society as much as it’s a place to study magic. My mum calls it, um, a microcosm. Like a smaller version of the real world. This is a safe place to learn about the political currents and how to use them, where nothing really bad will happen if you make someone mad or whatever, because we _are_ kids. But it’s still important to pay attention. For one, kids tell their parents things. And two, people will remember what you do, what you were like while you were at school, because first impressions are important even if you’re really different when you’re a grown-up.”

“That sucks,” Harry tells him, matter-of-fact. “It sucks that we’re not just allowed to be kids in school, and worry about alliances and all that once we’ve graduated. We have enough to worry about, what with the homework and the exams and upper-years playing tricks on us.” _Not to mention the Headmaster using the school to hide a super-powerful and super-rare magical artifact._ “Don’t you wish you could just _relax_ and forget about all of that?”

“Sometimes,” Blaise says, and Theo raises his head up off his bedspread to give him a shocked look. Blaise just shrugs. “My mum kept me out of it enough as a kid that I know what it’s like to not have to think about it for a while. It’s nice, sure. But… then you don’t have any control over your own destiny. It’s just other people running your life, running the world you live in. I don’t want that. I want to decide for myself.”

Harry swallows. That, he can agree with—he’s pretty sure that that exact sentiment is what got him into Slytherin in the first place. When he sat down under that Hat, everything spinning through his brain, he’d been thinking about wanting to be himself. Part of that is not letting other people control the world, because he has to live in it, and he doesn’t want to live in a bad world.

“I suppose,” Harry says, finally. “I guess I just… I never knew any of this was even possible. I love magic and the magical world, but who I am here is really different from who I thought I was when I was back with my aunt and uncle.”

“We all imagine our lives differently when we’re kids,” Theo says, and there’s something odd in his tone. “Things change. Our goals have to change, too. And sometimes we have to change ourselves to achieve those goals. You may not like it, Harry, but you’re in Slytherin. That means that what you do matters.”

It’s not that what he does _matters_ that’s so surprising to him, because he’s aware that his actions have consequences. He’d learned about consequences perfectly well with the Dursleys. It’s more that what he does, even the smallest things, _mean_ something to the wixen of Slytherin, as if every action (or non-action) should have been perfectly crafted by him to reflect some image of himself as a certain kind of person with certain allegiances. He’s begun to understand a little, but he still doesn’t really think that way—he knows that he has to be _politic_ , and he’s been pretty careful about some things. He’s definitely more sensible about thinking before he acts than his Gryffindor friends, who’re all pretty impulsive and flashy, even Hermione. But even then, he’s mostly just tried to avoid drawing any attention at all, because he doesn’t know what moves are the right ones, actions that will make the Slytherins think he actually… is who he is, and not some other strange version. Even doing that, though, has caused this: they think he’s _picking sides_ , that he’s some sort of figure with all this untapped importance who’s making statements about things, when that’s not true at all.

“Ugh,” Harry says.

“Yeah,” Theo says. “Me too. But it’s the House, and it’s the world we live in.”

“You’ll get better,” Blaise says, and comes over to pat Harry’s shoulder in a commiserating manner. “You weren’t taught how to maneuver in this world when you were growing up. But you’ve learned a lot; you’ve definitely gotten a lot more subtle, and at least now you know what you don’t know.”

“Make sure to ask your godfather about this stuff,” Theo advises. “He might’ve ended up as unsubtle a Gryffindor as ever there was, but he was raised a Black. He must at least sort of know this stuff, even if he doesn’t do it.”

“But you _have_ to do it,” Blaise says quickly. “You’re in Slytherin. You can’t behave like a Gryffindor.”

Harry nods. “I know. And, if it helps, I did know that helping Neville would probably be dumb. I did it anyway because I wasn’t planning on getting caught.”

Blaise and Theo exchange a look.

“Get better at that,” Theo says, “and then you can do whatever you want, pretty much. First rule of politics: if no one can prove it was you, go right ahead.”

Harry grins. “Sirius said that’s the first rule of pranking, too. Maybe he _can_ help me.”

“Merlin,” Blaise sighs. “We’ll make a Slytherin out of you yet, Potter.”

They spend the afternoon studying quietly, then troop down to dinner together. The other Slytherins continue to give Harry sideways looks, but no one says anything. Probably waiting to let Snape get the first word, Harry thinks, and with that in mind he makes his way as directed to Snape’s office after dinner, trying to brace himself for the cutting lecture he’s sure to receive. Just because he hasn’t been on the wrong end of one of Snape’s diatribes this year doesn’t mean he hasn’t heard them secondhand, so he knows full well what he’s in for.

Snape’s office door is open, and Harry steps inside, looking around as he did when he was summoned here in the fall. Nothing much has changed, really. Still gloomy and intimidating.

“Potter,” Snape says from behind his desk, and a flick of his hand causes the door to slam shut. His back is turned, which means he fortunately can’t see it when Harry jumps. “You know why you are here.”

“I got caught out of bounds,” Harry says. “After curfew.”

Snape turns around then, his eyes narrowed. “You _got caught_.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry says. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“So you see no fault in your having been out at night in the first place, in the company of your little Gryffindor friend.”

Harry makes his expression as innocent as possible. “I didn’t know it was against the rules for Slytherins to have Gryffindor friends, sir. I’ll tell Neville, Ron, and Hermione straight away.”

Snape visibly grits his teeth, and then says, “You are _here_ , Potter, because you broke the rules of this school, of which one is that you remain in your dormitory after curfew, and that you not by up the Astronomy Tower any time other than during Astronomy. Now, I do not know what exactly it is that you were up to with Longbottom, but that sort of behaviour will, under no circumstances, be tolerated.”

Harry sobers, knowing that he’s pushed Snape about as far as he can get away with. He thinks the teachers probably aren’t allowed to hit them, but he knows there are plenty of ways to hurt someone with magic without leaving any marks. “I’m sorry for breaking the rules, sir.”

“No promises never to do it again?” Snape sneers.

Harry looks at him, and then figures one more risk won’t hurt. “I think we both know I’d be lying. Everyone breaks the rules sometimes, sir. To promise I’m not ever going to break the rules ever again—about curfew, or whatever—would be acting like I think you’re stupid, which I don’t.”

Snape stares at him, then says, “You’re as foolhardy as your Gryffindor father.”

“What’ve you got against my father?” Harry asks, before he really thinks about it.

“Ask your filthy dogfather,” Snape replies, caustic, and then he waves his head. “You will attend Professor McGonagall’s assigned detention. I believe your Housemates’ displeasure with your loss of points will be quite enough punishment beyond that.”

“Malfoy lost us points too.”

“Best of luck in pointing that out to them.” Snape’s smile is cruel. “Out, Potter.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry says, and gets out.

The worst part is, Snape is right. Over the next week or so, Harry finds himself routinely afflicted with low-grade hexes and jinxes, mostly just obnoxious things, enough to make him stumble in the hallway or to turn his hair Weasley-red. He gets a lot of nasty comments directed his way in the common room, and Blaise and Theo stop talking to him, apparently content to wait out the storm until it’s socially acceptable to be seen to be friends with him again. It’s not exactly making his life a misery, but it just goes to show how secure his status as someone to leave alone for the most part really is. That is, it’s not secure at all, and any misstep can tip him over from being a nobody into being public enemy number one. And he didn’t even do anything that bad. He doesn’t bother trying to tell anyone that Malfoy had lost 20 of the total 70 points; they probably know and just don’t care, or don’t know and wouldn’t care anyway. Malfoy has status, real status, that protects him from the ire of the rest of Slytherin when he messes up. Harry doesn’t. And he has no allies. His friends are over in Gryffindor, where Neville is also getting some heat from his Housemates, though not as much, and Harry knows that to try to take shelter with them until this is over would only make his situation worse. So he shuts up and takes it. At least no one’s actually _hurting_ him.

Then, about a week after Harry got caught with Neville, the hexes mostly stop. He has one morning to breathe a sigh of relief, and he meets up with Hermione after Transfiguration to walk to lunch. On the way down toward the Great Hall, someone hits Harry in the back with a Tripping Jinx and he tumbles down half a flight of stairs. He manages to get his arms around his head and isn’t badly harmed when he gets to the bottom, but his arms and his sides feel bruised, and he thinks his ankle was twisted. Hermione rushes down the steps after him and picks him up off the ground in time for him to see Marcus Flint brush past her. He doesn’t look over his shoulder at them, but Harry knows it was him who did it, and he gets the message. His ‘punishment’ is over for now, sure. But it could have been a lot worse, and they haven’t forgiven him for his crimes, such as they are.

“Fine,” Harry says to himself, and just nods when Hermione asks if he’s okay. He’s just fine. He’ll figure it out.

* * *

> _Dear Harry,_
> 
>  
> 
> _We’ve gotten the go-ahead! Dumbledore says you can come for the summer hols and stay with us. I can’t_ _wait_ _._
> 
> _I’ll pick you up from the train in London, okay? Just look for me on the platform, same as at Easter. We’ll go back to the flat and have a nice dinner with Moony, and then we’ll have all summer to spend time together. Maybe we’ll take a little holiday somewhere—my family owns some properties in other parts of the UK, if you’d like, and Moony and I would be happy to show you around in the magical world some more. There are plenty more things to see than just Diagon; maybe you’d like to see the Ministry? Or magical Edinburgh? That could be fun. Or we could go to Paris!_
> 
> _I also got a letter from McGonagall scolding me for being a bad influence. Got caught out after curfew, huh? Didn’t think to take the Cloak? I should probably be scolding you, but the truth is that your dad and Moony and I got up to much worse in school than a bit of stargazing from the top of the Astronomy Tower with a friend._
> 
> _Speaking of, I’m glad to hear you’ve made friends with Neville Longbottom. I know you mentioned him, but I didn’t realize you were good enough friends for midnight misadventures. I know House differences shouldn’t matter, but it does make it hard sometimes. Anyway, he’s a good kid, I’ve met his grandmother a few times (politics, you know, and they’re a good old Light family, friends with the Potters back in the day) and she’s very formidable. Maybe you’ll invite some of your friends over during the summer, or you can go visit with them. You said you had a muggleborn friend, too, right? Hermione something. Maybe she and her parents would want to spend some time in muggle London with us, or we can take them on an adventure in the magical world, or both! Both is always good._
> 
> _Hope to hear from you soon, pup. I’m so glad Dumbledore agreed we could take you—whatever McGonagall may think about me turning you into a troublemaker._
> 
>  
> 
> _Love,_
> 
> _Sirius_
> 
> **_[a doodle of a dog’s pawprint]_ **

* * *

Exams draw closer and closer, until finally there was only a little more than a week to go. Then, one morning, a note appears on Harry’s plate at breakfast.

 _Your detention will take place at eleven o’clock tonight. Meet Mr. Filch in the entrance hall. —Prof. M. McGongall_ , it says. Apparently, since they were so determined to be out late at night, they’ll now be kept out after curfew on a school night for whatever punishment Flich can devise at McGonagall’s order.

“Detention?” Theo asks, reading over Harry’s shoulder.

Harry folds the paper and shoves it in his pocket, then says, “Yeah. Just the one; guess she figured the points were enough. Plus setting Snape on me.”

“That’s enough punishment for anyone,” Theo says.

Harry nods in glum agreement. “Not looking forward to whatever this is, with Filch and all,” he says.

“No kidding,” Theo says, and turns back to his breakfast.

The day passes, and just before eleven Harry slings his school cloak around his shoulders and goes to meet Filch. Malfoy is leaving at the same time, apparently assigned the same detention, and they glare at each other then walk to the entrance hall in shared sullen silence.

Filch is already there when they arrive, and they only have to wait a moment for Neville. Once he shows up, Filch commands them to follow him and lights a lamp, which he uses to guide them out into the darkness of the night and across the grounds. As he walks, he delivers a speech full of wistfulness for the days when Hogwarts had allowed harsher forms of punishment; Harry clenches his teeth around a comment about how being hung by his wrists couldn’t be so very much worse than being struck with a frying pan or one of Dudley’s fists and then left to recover with barely anything to eat or drink in his tiny, dark cupboard for a few days, until the bruises don’t show any more and he can go back to school. Neville looks frightened; Malfoy looks like he’s trying very hard not to look frightened and is failing. Harry’s not sure what he looks like and he doesn’t much care. He just wants to get this done.

They head toward Hagrid’s hut, and when they hear the groundskeeper’s voice call out, Neville visibly relaxes, which makes Filch cackle.

“I suppose you think you’ll be enjoying yourself with that oaf?” he says. “Well, think again, boy—it’s into the forest with you, and no promises you’ll all come out in one piece.”

Neville’s face drains of colour in the wan light of Filch’s lantern, and Malfoy stops dead.

“The forest?” Malfoy repeats, his composure clearly gone. “We can’t go in there at night. There’s all sorts of things in there—werewolves, I heard.”

Harry bites his tongue rather than say, _It’s not the full moon, and the rest of the time they really aren’t that scary, except that Moony’s probably a better duelist than you_ or _your stupid dad._

“That’s your lookout, isn’t it?” says Filch. “Should’ve thought of them werewolves before you got into trouble.”

Hagrid appears then out of the dark, Fang at his heel. He’s carrying a massive crossbow, a quiver of bolts slung over one shoulder.

“About time,” he says. “Alright there, Neville, Harry?”

“I wouldn’t be too friendly if I were you,” Filch says in a nasty voice, “they’re here to be punished, after all.”

Hagrid rolls his eyes. “Been lecturing them, have you? S’at why you were late? Go on with you, Mr. Filch.”

“I’ll be back at dawn,” Filch says. “To collect what’s left of them.” He starts back off toward the castle, taking his lantern with him. They’re left with only the dim light coming from the windows of Hagrid’s hut, and Harry pulls out his wand and mutters a quick _Lumos_ to light the tip.

As he does, Malfoy is trying to convince Hagrid to let him go, and to Harry’s great satisfaction Hagrid tells Malfoy that he’ll either be coming into the forest with them or he’ll be going back to the dorms to pack, and good luck explaining why he was expelled to his father. Malfoy seems more than a little put out by this, but Hagrid doesn’t care and neither does Harry. So long as he shuts up and does whatever job this is that’ll apparently have them out here all night—at least he’ll have a valid excuse for falling asleep in History tomorrow.

Hagrid leads them over to the edge of the forest, where there’s a small dirt path that winds its way into the shadows between the trees, and points at a series of silver droplets on the ground that seem to glow with their own internal light.

“See that?” Hagrid says. “That’s unicorn blood. There’s one in the forest somewhere that’s been badly hurt by sommat. Another was killed last Wednesday; don’t know by what. Just know that we need to find this one and either help it or put it out of its misery.

“We’ll split up, take the path in different directions. There’s blood all over; it’s been staggering about since last night at least.” Hagrid looks at their group, then decides, “Harry and Neville with Fang; Malfoy, you stay with me. Don’t want you wandering off.”

“What if whatever hurt the unicorn finds _us_?” Malfoy demands.

“Ain’t nothing in the forest that’ll hurt you if you’re with me or Fang,” Hagrid says, his tone definite. “Like I said: don’t wander off. And Harry, Neville? Stick together and stay on the path. Fang’s a great bloody coward.”

Harry and Neville exchange a glance, then Harry says, “Great, thanks.”

“If anyone finds the unicorn, send up green sparks with yer wand,” Hagrid says, and makes them all prove that they can do it before he says, “Alright, off we go. At the fork, you two to the left, and we’ll go right.”

They all nod, and then follow Hagrid into the forest. Before long, as promised, the path branches, and Harry and Neville split off from Hagrid and Malfoy, taking Fang with them.

As they venture deeper into the forest, following the trail of silver blood splatter, Neville says, “Do you think it could be a werewolf that’s killing the unicorns?”

Harry shakes his head immediately. “It’s not the full moon,” he says, gesturing up at the sky. “And even if it was, it’d only be for one night; Hagrid said another unicorn was killed earlier, and this one was probably attacked yesterday.”

“Right,” Neville says. He sounds vaguely reassured, and then he says, more quietly, “I overheard something the other day.”

“Oh?”

“Quirrell, in an empty classroom near the library. It… sounded like someone was threatening him. He looked scared, when I saw him leaving after,” Neville says. “Maybe whoever’s looking for the Stone forced him to tell them how to get past his protection.”

Harry nods. Then he pauses and sighs. “You still think it’s Snape, don’t you.”

“I don’t,” Neville says. “But Ron does, and it’s easier not to argue with him. Hermione thinks we shouldn’t rule him out as a possibility. He’s just so nasty.”

“I know,” Harry says. “I still think Ron’s decided he’s evil because he’s a Slytherin. McGonagall’s not exactly nice either.”

“She doesn’t call students morons on a regular basis, either.”

“No, but insults and shouting aren’t _evil_. He doesn’t hurt anyone, and he does teach one of the most dangerous subjects. He’s probably right to be mad when people don’t pay attention in his class,” Harry says. “And anyway, he’s taught at Hogwarts for years. I think Dumbledore would have noticed if he were that bad.”

“You’re probably right,” Neville says.

They walk for most of an hour, not talking much, just following the spots of blood that are lit up by the glow from Harry’s wand. Neville has his wand out too, but hasn’t cast the light spell, just keeping it ready. Then, after a long period of finding not much of anything, Neville stops short. Harry stops as well, because he heard the same thing Neville did: the snap of a twig breaking in the bushes, the rustle of leaves. They’re not alone.

“Hide,” Harry hisses, and shoves Neville behind a tree, Fang on their heels as they take cover. Just in time: something tall steps out from between two of the great black trees, a looming shadow. Both Harry and Neville crouch behind their tree, holding their breaths.

“I know you are there,” the shadow says. “Your wand is still lit, little wizard.”

Harry looks down at his wand, in his hand and, indeed, still lit, and he says, “Bugger.”

“Harry,” Neville hisses, shocked.

“Well, it knows we’re here already,” Harry says. Then he steps back around the tree, lit wandpoint first. He’s not sure what sort of creature he was expecting, but not a tall figure, half-human on top, with pale skin, white-blond hair, and a man’s chest and features, and half-horse on the bottom, his horse body a creamy palomino.

Harry hears Neville step out behind him, and then his friend says, in an awed whisper, “Harry, that’s a centaur.”

“Indeed,” the centaur says, and dips his head in a sort of bow. “My name is Firenze. What are two young wixen doing in the forest with Hagrid’s dog?”

“We’re trying to find the unicorn,” Harry says, and points at the scattered silver trail they’ve been following. “Hagrid went the other way.”

“I see.”

“Do you know what it might be?” Neville asks, stepping up to stand at Harry’s shoulder. “Have you seen anything?”

“Hm,” says the centaur, and turns his face toward the stars. After a moment, he says, “Mars is bright tonight.”

“Okay,” says Harry, “but have you seen something killing unicorns?”

“Harry,” says Neville in an undertone, “we should probably be polite. Most centaurs don’t like humans much.”

“I do not mind humans, young Longbottom,” Firenze says, looking back at them after a moment. “But the forest is not safe tonight, especially for you. You must return to Hagrid.”

Harry frowns. “Excuse me,” he says, “but we were told we had to find the unicorn. Please, sir, have you seen if? If not we’ll be on our way.”

“I have not seen it,” Firenze says. “Now, go back to Hagrid.” Then he turns and strides back through the bushes without another word.

“Well, that could have been worse,” Neville says.

“Sure,” says Harry, and starts walking further along the path in the direction they’d been going.

“Hold on, Harry,” Neville says, grabbing his arm. “We should go back. Firenze said it wasn’t safe.”

“It wasn’t exactly safe before, and we still have a job to do,” Harry says. “We’ll probably be in trouble if we just give up.”

“Maybe,” Neville says, “but it won’t matter much if we get killed.”

“Aren’t you a Gryffindor?”

“Aren’t _you_ a Slytherin? Shouldn’t you care about self-preservation?”

Harry frowns. “I guess. But I also care about not getting in any more trouble.”

“We’d probably be in trouble with that centaur if we don’t—” Neville cuts himself off mid-word, and then whispers, “Did you hear that?”

Harry listens. The forest is silent. “No,” he says slowly. He’d been listening to Neville. “What did it sound like?”

“Like… a thump. I don’t know,” Neville says. “Not like Firenze sounded earlier.”

“Okay,” Harry says, keeping his voice down. “Could it have been the unicorn?”

Neville shrugs. “I think it was just that way,” he says, and points further along the path they’d been following. “Not far. We could check.”

“Okay,” Harry repeats. “How about this: if it’s nothing, we’ll go back, and if we’ve found the unicorn, job’s done.” _And if it’s something horrible dangerous and it kills us, well, that’s that then._ “Does that sound good?”

“Sure,” Neville says, sounding a bit relieved. “Let’s go look.”

Together, with Fang trailing behind, they make their way along the path until they reach the edge of a large clearing. At the far end there’s a massive ancient tree, its gnarled roots creating a hollow. Sprawled in the hollow is a white mass: the unicorn, and it’s dead. Harry’s not sure he’s ever seen anything so beautiful or so sad. Its long, graceful legs are sprawled at odd angles from its fall, and its pearly white hair is spread across the ground. Even in death it has a sort of illumination to it, like it’s shining in the blackness that surrounds it. Harry wishes he could have seen it when it was alive.

As it is, it’s no longer moving, though it seems like it was recently—from the amount of blood spread across the clearing it had been stumbling or thrashing about in pain here. There’s a wound in its throat that spills yet more silver onto the roots of the old tree and the dirt in which the unicorn lies.

Harry stands transfixed for another moment, while Neville, beside him, takes a step forward—and then freezes again. This time Harry hears it too: a slithering sound in the bushes alongside the clearing. Both of them stand stock-still and silent with shock as a hooded figure glides out of the shadows on the right side of the clearing and toward the unicorn, its attention fixed on the corpse. It crawls across the clearing like an animal stalking prey and comes to rest beside the unicorn, then lowers its head over the wound in the unicorn’s neck and begins to drink its blood.

Harry can’t breathe, can’t speak; only the fact that he’s frozen in terror lets him keep his grip on his wand. Neville seems much the same, the hand that holds his wand trembling visibly. Then, behind them both, Fang whimpers in fear and bolts into the woods, making a tremendous racket.

The hooded figure lifts its face and looks directly at them. No, at _Neville_ , and it gets up and swiftly moves toward them.

Neville screams and slaps his hand to his forehead. A moment later he crumples to his knees, and Harry instinctively steps in front of him, his wand held out in front of him, the light blazing. The hooded figure doesn’t seem deterred, and for a moment Harry thinks it’s going to jump on him or throw him from its path. Then the sound of galloping hooves fills the air, and from the bushes to his left, opposite the way the figure had come, Firenze leaps into the clearing. The figure flails backward from the centaur’s hooves and then swiftly turns and vanishes back into the darkness. Harry stares after it, past Firenze, but as quickly as it had appeared it disappears and now he can’t see it at all, nor is there anything to mark its passing beside the body of the unicorn that had been its victim.

Behind Harry, Neville moans in pain and Harry turns to help him up to his feet.

“What happened?” Neville says blearily, then sees Firenze standing in the clearly and goes a bit pale. “Oh. Thank you, Firenze. What was that thing?”

The centaur doesn’t answer. Harry wraps an arm around Neville to support him, turning so that they’re both facing Firenze, and Neville leans into him. Firenze looks at them both with his pale sapphire eyes, piercing and strange in the gloom of the forest and the wake of fear, and then he says, “I told you to go back to Hagrid.”

“We had to find the unicorn,” Neville says. “Sorry. We were going to go right after checking out a noise we heard, and then that… that thing showed up.”

“Well, now you _must_ go,” Firenze says. “Can you ride? It will be faster. The sooner you are out of this forest, the better.”

He kneels down on his front legs, and Harry helps Neville up then clambers up awkwardly behind, hugging his friend so that he doesn’t fall off. Firenze stands again and begins to pick his way back along the path, turning his head this way and that as they go, watching diligently for any more danger.

Suddenly, there’s another great sound of hooves, and two more centaurs burst onto the path in front of them. Both are older than Firenze and bulkier. One, more wild-looking, has black hair and horse parts; the other has red hair and chestnut horse-parts, with fine aristocratic features.

“Firenze!” the black-haired one shouts. “What are you doing? Ferrying humans on your back like some common mule? Have you no shame!?”

“Bane,” Firenze says. “Be calm. I carry the Longbottom boy; he must leave this forest immediately.”

“What have you been telling him?” Bane demands. “We are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens; you have read as clear as I what is in the stars tonight.”

“I’m sure Firenze thought he was acting for the best,” the other centaur says. His voice is low and sad. “Mars is bright, and always it is the innocent who are the first victims of war. That is a tragedy.”

“Yes,” says Bane. “A tragedy that is written in history and in the heavens, far beyond our control and beyond what we should meddle with. Put those humans down and get back to the tribe, Firenze.”

Firenze rears suddenly. Neville grabs his shoulders and Harry clutches tighter to Neville to prevent themselves from being thrown. When he comes back down onto all four hooves, he shouts, “Did you not see that unicorn, Bane? Did you not understand why it was killed? I do not set myself against the heavens, I set myself against the evil that has invaded our forest and the harm it means to the innocent who come here. Even if they _are_ humans.”

With that, he whisks around and gallops off into the forest, leaving the path that Neville and Harry had followed. Both of them hang on tightly, desperate not to fall and be left lost among the trees.

After a few minutes, Firenze slows. Once he’s recovered his breath a little from the shock of adrenaline, Harry says, “So, what _was_ that thing? Why did it kill the unicorn?”

There’s a long pause, and then Firenze says, “Are you young wixen taught the uses of unicorn blood in that school?”

“No,” says Neville. “Just horn and tail hair, for Potions.”

“Good,” Firenze says. “For it is an evil thing indeed to slay a unicorn, and willing gifts of blood are even rarer than those of horn and tail. Listen well: only a being with nothing to lose would commit such a crime, for to drink the blood of a unicorn inflicts a terrible curse. It will keep someone alive even if they are an inch from death, but that life will be only a half-life. A shadowed life, from the moment the blood passed your lips.”

Neville swallows audibly.

Harry says, “Who would ever be that desperate? Wouldn’t it be better just to die?”

“Perhaps,” Firenze says. “Unless one had designs on something else that they might drink that could return to them the vitality that the unicorn’s curse has stolen. Something that would grant them the fullness of their strength and power, and a long stay of mortality beside.”

“The Elixir of Life,” Harry says, the pieces clicking together suddenly. “The Stone is in the school, and whatever that was came here to steal it.”

“But who _is_ it?” Neville asks, his voice trembling. He sounds so much like he’s dreading the answer that Harry wonders if he might have an idea.

“Can you think of no one, Neville Longbottom? No one who has clung to life these long years, planning his return?”

“Oh,” says Neville. “Oh, no.”

“Neville—”

“Voldemort.”

Harry stares at the back of his friend’s neck. That—that _thing_ that had crawled in the dirt like an animal, that had threatened them from the shadows, that had driven his friend to his knees… it was the remnants of Lord Voldemort? The one who had caused the war, who had given the orders that had led to his parents’ insanity? It seems wrong, because Harry had been told that Voldemort was dead and yet… what other answer could there be? Neville seems to believe it, and he’s the Boy-Who-Lived. If anyone might know that Voldemort was still alive, it would be him.

“Neville! Harry!” Hagrid’s booming voice brings a welcome reprieve from Harry’s own thoughts, and Firenze comes to a stop on the path in front of Hagrid and Malfoy. Fang too is there, having apparently sought his master in his fear. “Thank Merlin, yer alright. Hullo, Firenze.”

“Hello, Hagrid,” Firenze says, kneeling again to let Harry and Neville down. Both of them slide off his back and land on shaky legs, still clinging to one another for support.

“Are you alright?” Hagrid asks. He claps them each on the shoulder so roughly that they both nearly end up in the dirt, and bends down to look into their pale faces.

“Fine,” Neville manages. “The unicorn’s dead, Hagrid, in a clearing back there.”

Harry waves vaguely behind them, not entirely sure he’s pointing in the right direction, but he reckons Hagrid will be able to find it if necessary.

“They must leave the forest,” Firenze tells Hagrid sternly. “Take them out before you find the corpse. The thing that killed it may yet lurk.” Then he turns to Neville, and he says, “Good luck, Neville Longbottom,” before vanishing back into the forest once more.

“Thanks,” Neville mutters, his face blank and stunned. Harry wraps an arm around his shoulders and hopes that their journey back to the castle will be quiet. He doesn’t think he can handle even one more thing going wrong tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First: Harry expresses a view of Snape in this chapter that, just to be totally clear, I do not agree with. But Harry is abused, and has a weird metric for acceptable conduct of adults toward children.
> 
> Second: so, there's only one chapter left in Book One! Which is... wild. Also, a little worrying for me, lmao, because the school term has prevented me from building much buffer. Because of that, I'm planning to take a hiatus post-Book One completion. I've completed six chapters of Book Two and would like to have at least ten chapters of buffer. Optimistically, of course, I'd like to actually be _finishing_ with Book Two, but that's going to take a while - the second book is shaping up to be more like 18-20 chapters, instead of 11. So realistically, Mostly Finished is what I'm going to be able to manage without taking an overly long hiatus. (I'm also going to be finishing a thesis in the next month and a half, so. Less time for writing. But this fucker is getting finished _if it kills me_.)
> 
> With that in mind: Book One will have its final update on February 24th. Please don't expect to see Book Two start going up until the beginning of April at the _earliest_ , with an allowance for it coming more like mid-late April. You can follow me on Twitter @flippingnazguls, where I am trying to get better about posting status updates. I'm on Tumblr too (@motherfuckingnazgul) but like... never post about my writing, woops.
> 
> Third and last (sorry for long end notes): dfhsdjfsdkf **_more than 300 kudos, almost 100 bookmarks, 85 unique comment threads, and more than 200 subscriptions, are you kidding, thank you all so much_**


	11. The Stone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, "Through The Trapdoor."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it. The last chapter of Book One. Weird.
> 
> I'd like to give a HUGE thank you to every single person who commented on this fic, to all who bookmarked, everyone. You've kept me going. A specific big shoutout to fishydwarrows, who comments like clockwork on every chapter, which is an insanely good feeling. I don't even have words to express my gratitude to all of you for loving this fic and telling me about it, and I hope you enjoy the last chapter.
> 
> Another final massive thank you to my beta, to my partner in crime, and to everyone who let me holler at them about this fic in its nascent stages. I couldn't have done this without any of you, but... damn, it sure is done.
> 
> I'm setting up the entire rest of the AU here, so all I've really got to say is hold onto your hats, folks.

 

 

It seems stupid, in light of the fact that Voldemort is lurking about, that within the week Harry, Neville, and the rest of their friends and classmates have to sit down and write exams. Unfortunately no one else (well, other than Hermione and Ron) know about Voldemort, and if they told anyone they’d probably be treated like lunatics. So they have to buckle down and try to pass. At the end of it, Harry feels like he’s done alright, and at least what with Voldemort the stress he’d had about passing his exams seems like nothing.

There’s an early summer heatwave, which means that in between writing their tests in the sweltering exam classrooms, most of the students have found themselves sprawling about on the lawn or beside the lake, including Harry and his friends. Neville mentions quietly to Harry about halfway through exams that his scar is still hurting him on occasion, and has been since the forest; Harry makes a joke about having a Voldemort detector that makes Ron give him a horrified look, but Neville laughs. They also take the opportunity while Ron and Hermione are off in the library frantically finishing their revision for their last exam to discuss the dreams both of them have been having. Coming face-to-face with the figure of their literal nightmares has stirred up some, well, nightmares for the both of them. Neville about the murder of his parents, Harry about the torture of his own. It’s nice to have someone to talk to who understands. Neville grew up in the magical world, of course, and has the added pressure of being the Boy-Who-Lived, so he has a bit of a different relationship to the memory of the last war against Voldemort than Harry does, but it’s closer than what Ron or Hermione, or Blaise or Theo could ever have. Their parents were taken from them by that war, on the same night even. Halloween 1981 was the worst night of both of their lives, and both of them have had to live with the consequences ever since, of things that happened to them when they were still only babies.

The next day, they write their last final exam, and at last are able to flop about on the grass with impunity, enjoying the sunshine and the fresh air without guilt. (Guilt, thy name is Hermione-standing-over-you-waving-her-notes.) Ron is dozing in a patch of sun, Hermione sitting under a tree with her book, and Harry and Neville are sitting on the beach watching the Weasley twins and Lee Jordan play with the giant squid, which is basking in the shallows.

“I just feel like I’m forgetting something,” Neville says out of nowhere.

“How d’you mean?” Harry asks.

“Like… ugh.” Neville rubs his forehead. The scar is looks red and sore, perhaps because Neville has been rubbing it so much, or perhaps Neville has been rubbing it because of its soreness. “I just feel like there’s no way Voldemort is going to let himself be stopped by a three-headed dog, of all things. He had to… have… hold on.”

Neville leaps up from his seat, leaving Harry to scramble after, and runs over to where Hermione was sitting. “Hermione!” Neville shouts, and then lowers his voice once they’re in easier earshot and she has looked up. “What did Hagrid say again about how he got Norbert?”

“Um,” she says. “He said he met a ‘bloke’ in a pub who had the egg and was willing to gamble it away.”

“That seems _crazy_ ,” Neville says. “Ron, you said dragon breeding was illegal, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” says Ron, rolling over in the grass to look at them. “Why?”

“It seems too convenient,” Harry says, following Neville’s train of thought. “It’s way too convenient that Hagrid is the source of Voldemort’s greatest barrier, and then someone shows up with exactly what he wants most just… on hand. Out of nowhere. When no one would normally be caught dead with a dragon egg in their pocket—they’d go to jail or be fined or whatever.”

“It’s a massive fine,” Ron agreed. “Plus the risk of getting your house burnt down.”

“Exactly,” Neville says. “Come on, we have to go see Hagrid _right now_.”

“Er,” says Ron, and this time it’s his and Hermione’s turns to scramble up as Neville races away, headed toward Hagrid’s hut with Harry hot on his heels.

Hagrid is outside when they arrive, sitting on his front step. He looks up when they approach and smiles at them, says, “Hullo there! Finished yer exams? Got time for a drink?”

“Yes,” says Ron, who’s panting from the heat.

“ _No_ ,” says Harry. “We’re in a hurry. Hagrid: who gave you Norbert’s egg?”

“Said it was a stranger in a pub, didn’t I?” Hagrid says. “Dunno what he looked like—he wouldn’t take off his cloak.”

All four of them must look a little shocked at that, and he raises his eyebrows at them.

“Not that much of a shock, is it now,” he says. “Y’get lots of funny folk down at the Hog’s Head—that’s the pub down in Hogsmeade—and if this feller were a dragon dealer he wouldn’t want to go showing his face, would he?”

“Did he ask you anything about Hogwarts?” Harry demands, less concerned about being rude than Neville or the others might have been, for they stayed silent.

“Sure,” says Hagrid. “Asked what I did and all. When I said I looked after the grounds, includin’ the forest, he asked about the creatures in there and I talked about that a bit. When he mentioned he had the dragon egg—well, okay, I don’t remember so well, he kept buying me drinks—anyway, he wanted to be sure I could handle it, and I said after Fluffy I could handle anything…”

“Did he seem interested in Fluffy?” Neville asks, picking up Harry’s thread when Harry finds himself mute with horror at the indiscretion. Suddenly he knew how his Gryffindor friends had found out so much about the Stone from Hagrid: their half-giant friend has no filter whatsoever on what he says to whom.

“Sure,” Hagrid says. “Don’t see many three-headed dogs around, do you? But I said, he’s no trouble at all if you know how to calm him down, just play him some music and he goes right to sleep.”

He takes in their faces and then says, “I shouldn’t have told you that. I should _not_ have told you that. Hey, where’re you going?”

But they’re already gone, running for the castle. As they go, Neville pants, “We’ve got to get Professor Dumbledore.”

“I know where his office is,” Harry replies, equally out of breath. They press on, and soon they’re racing through the halls of the castle toward Dumbledore’s office. They pause at an intersection to catch their breath, and before they can continue, a voice catches them.

“What are you four doing inside?” says Professor McGonagall, approaching with a pile of books in her arms.

“We need to see Professor Dumbledore,” Neville says. “Please.”

“See Professor Dumbledore?” she replies, in a tone that says that this is a suspicious thing to want. “Why?”

“It’s a secret,” Harry blurts, and McGonagall turns narrowed eyes on him. _Damn_ , he thinks.

“Professor Dumbledore left only a few minutes ago,” she says coldly. “He was summoned by an urgent owl to the Ministry of Magic and is gone to London.”

“ _London?_ ” Harry says, dismayed.

“Yes, Mr. Potter,” she says. “Despite what you may believe, Professor Dumbledore has many more and greater demands on his time than your—”

“Someone’s going to try to steal the Philospher’s Stone!” Neville says, and McGonagall whirls on him.

“How on earth do you know about—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Harry says. “Please, Professor. We _know_ someone is going to try to take it. We need to see Professor Dumbledore.”

“Please,” Hermione pipes up from behind him.

McGonagall does not look moved. “Rest assured that the Stone is very well protected from theft or harm,” she says. “Professor Dumbledore will return tomorrow. Until then, you may keep your conspiracy theories to yourselves. Go outside and enjoy the sunshine.”

Then she strides off. They do not go outside.

“It’ll happen tonight,” Harry says.

“It has to,” Neville agrees. “They’ve gotten Dumbledore out of the way.”

“Snape’s probably headed there right now,” Ron says.

Harry scowls at him. “It’s not Snape!” he says. “Honestly. But we need to figure out what to do.”

“We’ll stop him,” Ron says insistently. “One of us should watch him—”

“Watch whom?” comes a familiar silky voice from behind them.

All of them turn at once to see Snape himself standing there, glaring.

“Er,” says Ron.

“Quite, Mr. Weasley,” Snape says. “You all had best be careful about loitering in the halls, lest someone think you were… up to something.”

“Yes, sir,” says Harry, stepping up to the front of the group. “We’ll keep it in mind, _sir.”_

“Mind your tone, Potter,” Snape says, his glare gone even darker, and then he sweeps away down the hall.

“Bloody hell,” says Ron. “How do you deal with _him_ as your Head of House?”

“I don’t suspect he’s working for Voldemort, for one,” Harry says under his breath. “Look, we’ve got to figure something else out. There’s no way he won’t catch on if we try to tail him—he’s a Slytherin, he knows that sort of thing too well.”

“Alright, so what _can_ we do?” Hermione asks. Her voice is a bit shaky and frightened.

“We go find another teacher,” Neville says. All of them turn to look at him, and he shrugs, self-conscious. “Professor McGonagall didn’t believe us, but…”

“But she’s suspicious of me anyway,” Harry says. “I should’ve kept my fat mouth shut. Even if I had, she’s also super strict, we all know that. I’d bet she’d never have believed us.”

“Let’s ask Professor Sprout,” Neville says. “She likes me and you, Harry. She’s nice. And she’ll probably at least humour us, even if she doesn’t _believe_ us.”

Hermione is nodding slowly, and Ron looks like he doesn’t entirely agree but he nods too, after a moment.

Together, they all run out to check the greenhouses first, where Professor Sprout can often be found. Luckily she’s not in the middle of an exam, and is by herself when Neville sticks his head into Greenhouse One to see if she’s there. She’s busy checking the soil of some sort of flower, and smiles at them when she sees them.

“Hello there,” she says, and pulls off her gloves, walking over. “What can I do for you fine gentlemen and lady today?”

“We need your help,” Neville says. “It’s about the Philosopher’s Stone.”

This startles Professor Sprout so much that she drops her gloves. She takes the time to pick them up before turning a stern look on them. “Now how on earth do you know about that?”

“Does it matter?” Ron says, and Hermione smacks his shoulder.

“I suppose not,” Professor Sprout says. “What is this about, Mr. Longbottom?”

“We think someone’s going to steal it,” Neville says. “I know it sounds crazy. We already tried to tell Professor McGonagall and she told us to go back outside. But… Professor Dumbledore is gone, and we’re pretty sure that something bad has been lurking around Hogwarts that wants the Stone.”

“Like what?” she asks.

He shrugs and glances at his friends. Harry understands the hesitation; mentioning Voldemort really _will_ make them look crazy. So he speaks up, taking the pressure off Neville.

“We helped Hagrid find a dead unicorn in the forest last week,” he says. “Something killed it, and we know how awful that is. But Hermione read about the Stone, and the Elixir of Life could fix the curse, right?”

Professor Sprout looks at them all, their earnest faces, and then sighs. “I’m no expert in alchemy or Defence Against the Dark Arts, but perhaps.”

“So you can see why someone would want it,” Neville says, his expression turned pleading. “Please, Professor Sprout. We just need someone to go check, to make sure that nothing can get to the Stone. We think someone’s going to try to steal the Stone tonight, when everyone’s sleeping and can’t stop them.”

“Fine,” she says. “I will go and check on the defence I created for the Stone, and ask my fellows to do the same, so that we can be sure nothing was tampered with. Now: please go back outside and enjoy your freedom, why don’t you? Exams are over; now is your time to relax.”

They all nod and allow themselves to be ushered out of the greenhouse, which, reassuringly, Professor Sprout locks behind herself. She sets off up toward the castle and they stand watching her go.

“She believed us,” Ron says, slightly incredulous. Harry agrees strongly.

“She’s nice,” Neville says again. “Anyway, it’s not really McGonagall’s fault. We haven’t really gotten on her good side. But Professor Sprout doesn’t have any reason to think we’re troublemakers, even if we know things we shouldn’t.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t _be_ troublemakers,” Hermione says primly. “Come on, let’s go back to the lake.”

So they do. The rest of the afternoon passes peacefully. Harry can’t help but worry about what might be happening with the Stone, and knows his friends must feel the same because they glance toward the castle sometimes too. Still, Professor Sprout and the other teachers are more able to deal with it if something _does_ try to take the Stone than any of them could be. Whatever that thing was in the forest, Harry can’t imagine trying to fight it. Better intimidating Snape, or competent McGonagall, or skilled Flitwick, or even Quirrell, whose job it technically is to defend against the Dark Arts. Not a pack of eleven year olds.

That evening, Dumbledore is still absent from the Head Table at dinner, but all the other professors are there. Harry hopes that that means that they’ve checked the defences and they’re fine, or they’re getting ready to go just after dinner, and not that they’re not going to bother after all. He considers going himself, sneaking out tonight under his Cloak to make sure, but knows that if he gets caught he’ll be hanged by Slytherin, and even if he doesn’t, what then? Either Fluffy will be awake and snarling, and so the risk will be for nothing, or Voldemort will have gotten past and so Harry will be on his own to face all of the teachers’ defences, whatever’s left of them, and Voldemort himself. He might have his moments (he thinks of stepping between Neville and that cloaked figure in the forest), but he’s not a Gryffindor. He’s supposed to be smarter than that. It’s alright, he thinks, to err on the side of caution.

Harry sleeps poorly, waking repeatedly from anxious dreams and shifting nightmares, filled with shadowy forests, the slither of a cloak through fallen leaves, and the echo of his parents’ screams. He knows he’s hollow-eyed and ashen the following morning, but doesn’t care to respond to his roommate’s looks.

Dumbledore is still missing from the Head Table at breakfast. So is Quirrell. So are all four Heads of House. Harry cannot help but think that that’s not a good sign, and when he meets Neville and Hermione’s eyes across the hall, he thinks that they probably agree. There’s no way to know anything until they’re told, though.

The next day after that, the professors and Headmaster, excluding Quirrell, reappear at the Head Table. Dumbledore and the Heads of House all look grim. At least Snape looks like Snape always does, which is to say… well, grim. _Very_ not a good sign, Harry thinks, and that afternoon he and his Gryffindor friends huddle around a table in the library, which in the wake of exams is almost entirely deserted but for the odd Ravenclaw, and have a whispered discussion.

They can’t come to a consensus about what’s happened. Harry thinks that it’s possible that Voldemort got away with the Stone. Hermione thinks that Quirrell turned out to have been the thief, and the dark looks on the other professors’ faces were simply from that knowledge, but the Stone was protected. Ron mostly grumbles about how they were the ones who told Sprout and McGonagall about the problem, so shouldn’t they get an update? Neville stays almost entirely silent, only once saying, “If Voldemort’s got the Stone, everything’s going to change. Even if he hasn’t, this means he’s back, and it’s all changing anyway.”

None of them have much to say to that, and after a length of silence, they drift away from their table. Harry goes back down to the Slytherin dorms and curls up on his bed. He’s not sure how much time passes before Blaise comes into the room and, seeing Harry there, says, “If you’re sick you should go to the Hospital Wing.”

“What would happen if Voldemort came back?” Harry says, instead of answering the implied question.

Blaise looks taken aback. “Er,” he says. “Why?”

“Dunno,” Harry says. “Just… what do you think?”

“… A lot would change,” Blaise says. “Everything, really. Slytherin would be even more political.”

The way he says it has the air of a joke, but Harry doesn’t laugh at his roommate’s poking fun at his discomfort with politics.

Blaise hesitates, then continues, “Voldemort is dead, though. Longbottom killed him when he was a baby.”

“Are you sure?” Harry says, and then rolls over so as not to have to look at the surprise and growing discomfort on Blaise’s face. He hadn’t wanted to make his friend afraid. _He’s_ afraid, though.

* * *

The professors say nothing to any of them in the last two days of term. Everyone in the school is gearing up for the End of Term Feast, the last huge celebratory meal before they all get on the train and head back home for the summer. Blaise is not talking to Harry, which Theo notices and remarks upon in an increasingly more blunt manner, until just before the feast he asks Harry directly what happened.

“I guess I said something that he didn’t like,” Harry says, which is true. Blaise seems unwilling now to meet Harry’s eyes, as if his words had stirred up some possibility in his mind that made him so uncomfortable that now he can barely look at Harry.

Harry himself just feels numb. He can barely remember his earlier excitement to go spend the summer with Sirius and Remus, though it does linger from when he’d received Sirius’s letter… only two weeks ago now, though it seems like surely it had to have been longer. So much has happened in that time.

Still, he hopes that he’ll be able to reach the carefree joy he’d touched so frequently with them once he’s with them again. Their comfort and their love will, he’s sure, be enough to banish the fear he’s feeling. He doesn’t even know for sure that Voldemort has the Stone—though not knowing is, in some ways, even worse. He just wishes Snape or Dumbledore or McGonagall had _told_ them something. They all knew that he and his friends in Gryffindor know about the Stone and that something was happening; why not just tell them? It’s that exact thing that makes him think that the Stone is gone. They don’t want to break the bad news, especially to Neville, whose life is sure now to be under threat once more from the man who tried to murder him when he was only a year old.

The end of year feast is grand as promised. When Harry walks in, he sees that Slytherin had not managed to hold onto their lead, and broken a six-year streak: the hall is decorated instead in blue and bronze. Harry had been vaguely aware of the intense battle going on between Slytherin and Ravenclaw in the past few weeks, and had done what he could to make up for his own loss, but he knows that his Housemates are still more than a little irritated with him for the massive loss that had contributed to the loss of their lead. They hadn’t let it slip away easily, but away the victory had slipped.

Perhaps the last person to arrive for the meal is Dumbledore himself, who comes to stand at the centre of the dais, in front of the Head Table. The babble in the hall dies down.

“Another year gone!” Dumbledore says cheerfully. “And I must trouble you with an old man’s wheezing waffle before we sink our teeth into our delicious feast. What a year it has been! Hopefully your heads are all a little fuller than they were.

“Now, as I understand it, the House Cup needs awarding and the points stand thus: in fourth place, Hufflepuff, with three hundred and fifty-two points; in third place, Gryffindor, with four hundred and twelve; in second place, Slytherin, with four hundred and twenty-two, and Ravenclaw, with four hundred and twenty-six!”

There’s a great hullabaloo as all of the Ravenclaws cheer and stamp and thump their table, and the other Houses applaud them politely.

“Well done, Ravenclaw! A narrow victory indeed, and so all the more clearly hard-fought-for!” Dumbledore says, once the noise has died down. He pauses for a moment, and his expression goes sober. “It has indeed been a good year, and a bad one, and an easy one, and a hard one, all very much depending on who you ask. Such is as it always is. I only hope that in this year you have all learned something, and thus are all the more prepared for whatever is to come.”

A chill races down Harry’s spine, but Dumbledore is still talking.

“You are all in your own ways brilliant, and I look forward very much to seeing all of your shining lights return in September. Have a good summer, each and every one of you, and make the most of it. But first, we eat!”

He makes a gesture, and as at the Welcoming Feast in the fall the tables are suddenly groaning under the weight of a massive meal. Despite their loss, the Slytherin table is in good spirits, and there’s much cheerful chatter all throughout the Hall. Harry tries to make his peace with the discomfort he feels, having heard Dumbledore’s speech, and is successful enough to enjoy the meal, discussing summer plans, listening as other Slytherins describe what they’re most looking forward to about returning home. Many are from wealthy families, and mention manors and vacation homes. Harry’s looking forward to playing fetch with Padfoot, and says so.

Indeed, that night Harry has happy dreams of running in the park with Padfoot, of stroking Hedwig’s silky head, of reading with Remus in the living room, and of other nebulous warmth and comfort. He spends the next day packing with that exact feeling in mind, folding away all of his clothes and stacking his books, making sure ink pots are sealed and quills cleaned. The exam results are handed out the day after that, and to Harry’s pleasure he’s gotten good scores. When he compares with his friends he finds he’s done about as well as Theo and better than Blaise, Neville, or Ron; Hermione of course has placed first in their class in every subject, not that anyone expected otherwise.

Finally, the morning of their departure from Hogwarts arrives, everyone with their lives once more packed away in their trunks and ready to be shipped off on the train. At breakfast, Harry is surprised to see Ajax winging his way down toward Harry with a letter from Sirius—it does seem rather last-minute. Ajax doesn’t wait for a reply, though, so Harry reckons it can’t be important and tucks the letter away to be read on the train.

He snatches a seat in a compartment with Hermione, Ron, and Neville and they determinedly do not talk about Voldemort or the Stone. Harry and Ron get into a game of Exploding Snap, and then Harry reads for a while, and he forgets entirely about the letter from Sirius. When he remembers, just at the end of the trip as they’re changing back into muggle clothes, he decides he can just ask Sirius what it said when he sees him; it’ll be less than an hour, after all.

It takes awhile to get off the train and then from there off of the platform. A guard is standing by the ticket barrier, letting people through in small groups so as not to alarm all of the muggles in the station and cause an incident by having a whole mess of people all burst through a solid wall at once.

On the other side, Harry looks around for Sirius. He doesn’t see his godfather just yet, but there’re about a thousand people swarming about. Ron’s family appears and vanishes with him in short order, and then an intimidating woman with a hat with a vulture on it appears to collect Neville. Harry and Hermione wait a while, and then from behind Harry a voice says, “There you are, boy!”

Harry closes his eyes. No, he thinks. There must be a mistake. But he turns and there is his Uncle Vernon, looking halfway to apoplectic with rage just from the inconvenience of having had to come into King’s Cross.

“Hold on,” Harry says.

“Ready, are you?”

“No,” Harry says, and scrabbles for the letter in his pocket. He rips it open and reads the few short lines of text on the single sheet, scrawled hurriedly.

 

_Harry, I’m so sorry, change of plans. We’ll see you in a few weeks, but you’ve got to go back to your aunt and uncle’s for a little while. For your safety, I promise, and just until things settle a bit here; I wouldn’t do this if there were a better option._

_Things have changed. I’ll explain when I see you._

 

_Love,_

_Sirius_

 

“Harry?” asks Hermione worriedly, looking for Harry to his uncle and then back again. “Is everything alright?”

“No,” Harry says. He shows her the letter, and she reads rapidly, then looks up with a pale face.

“Voldemort has the Stone,” she whispers.

“Yeah,” Harry replies. “I think he does.”

Voldemort has the Stone, and he’s going back to the Dursleys’ for the summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... that happened. Any/all screaming is welcome in the comments.
> 
> This is where it really starts. I chose to write Year One, to do a full rewrite, because I wanted to give the full setup for the AU I imagined initially, which really hits its stride in years 4/5/6, and not just explain it in a long A/N, and I hope that I did this early setup justice.
> 
> I'll give a proper warning now, now that the Big Twist has happened: this AU is pretty dark. Obviously, things turn for the worse earlier here than in canon, and that means that things are going to be very different. I don't do torture porn or character bashing, so the tone will stay pretty level and hopefully realistic rather than overly dramatic, but things are definitely going to be dark at times - not right away, Year Two is pretty tame too, but eventually. If you're not into that, this is probably a good exit point.
> 
> If you ARE into that, if you're onboard with me and want to ride this train, well. I can say that as of posting this chapter, Year Two has officially just passed 50,000 words (six complete chapters, and about half of a seventh). It's gonna be significantly longer than Year One. If you'd like to continue to follow this story, please subscribe to the series! Book Two: The Nascent Threat will be posted there as soon as I'm able. Until then, you can find me on social media as always (see the note below), and I do reply to comments. Thank you all for coming this far with me. See you on the other side. <3

**Author's Note:**

> Comments fuel the writing machine and kudos make the author smile. Please feel free to leave both! I do reply to comments when possible for me <3.
> 
> ETA: Also, I keep forgetting, but I can be found on Tumblr @motherfuckingnazgul or on Twitter @flippinnazguls (where I also post writing updates). Come say hi to me there if you want!
> 
> ETA: The kudos count keeps climbing and I keep being blown away by it - subscribers, too. I do check my stats, I know you're there, and I love and appreciate you all <3


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